Syrian state’s violation of Kurdish human rights

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Turkey exhibits a mix of democratic and authoritarian characteristics, varying among regions. Democracy, legality, and citizenship rights are absent in Northern Kurdistan where for a century an entrenched discriminatory emergency rule has targeted ethnically conscious and politically mobilised Kurds. The Constitution affirms the Turkish Motherland and Nation as the indissoluble unity of the Sublime Turkish State (Preamble). Ataturk nationalism, Turkishness, and the TURKISH NATION [upper case as in original] are principles enshrined in the preamble of the Constitution. The supremacy of the Turkish language is decreed (Article 3), non-amendable and non-negotiable (Article 4).

Assimilation into the Turkish community is the only path to political representation at national and local levels. But the Kurds have resisted assimilation while seeking democratic norms. Despite limited gains in linguistic rights, Kurdish petitions to domestic and international judicial bodies have resulted in state violence and a negative effect on political rights. Identifying as ‘Turkish’ offers the only possibility of ascending within the government. Articles 9 and 70 of Turkey’s Constitution reinforce the same identity for the purpose of entering into public service and the exercise of juridical power by ‘[e]very Turk’ and ‘the Turkish Nation’. Without remaining remedies, the Kurds of Bakûr appear to meet the elements for a qualified unilateral secession.

Rojava (West)

Syria as an Arab entity was likewise founded on the phone number list denial of minorities within its boundaries as in its 2012 amended Constitution. Like its predecessor, the Constitution emphasises the ‘Arab identity’ of people in striving for ‘the unity of the Arab nation’ with the country considered ‘the beating heart of Arabism’ (Preamble), and ‘part of the Arab nation’ (Article 1).

Successive Human Rights Watch reports show that human rights violations justify a qualified right to secession for the Kurds in Rojava. Revealing of the Syrian official attitude was a security report on Cizîr (‘Jazira’), published on 12 November 1963 by a former secret service agent (Muhammad Talab al-Hilal) refuting the ‘history’, ‘civilization’, ‘language’, and ‘even [the] definite ethnic origin’ of the Kurds to deny their separate existence (Study of the National Social and Political Aspects of the Province of Jazira 1963). Later, the Secret Services anathematised the Kurds as equivalent to Israelis and Kurdistan as ‘Judistan’ and advocated policies tantamount to genocide.

With the removal of Syrian state control from Western Kurdistan and the establishment of Kurdish self-rule there since 2012, no reports of egregious human rights violations have come to light, while the incumbent Syrian state is still accountable for the oppression inflicted on the Kurds before the 2011 civil war and its silence on Turkey’s occupation of parts of Rojava since 2018, its recurring incursions and drone strikes resulting in the loss of civilian lives. Rojavan self-rule remains formally unrecognised by Damascus. may or may not lead to the ultimate remedy of secession if Damascus tries to re-impose control over Rojava.