1962 census in al-Hasakah
The 1962 census in al-Hasakah was carried out on October 5, 1962 by the Syrian government. As a result, 120,000 Kurds (then about 20 percent of the Kurds in Syria ) in the al-Hasakah governorate were revoked of their Syrian citizenship and they were declared foreigners. The number of stateless Kurds has now risen to more than 300,000.
execution
The census took place on the basis of "Decree No. 93" of August 23, 1962 in the governorate of al-Hasakah . The driving force behind the decision was its governor Saʿid as-Saiyid. In fact, residents had Syrian ID cards and were asked to hand them over so that they could be renewed. Those who did that didn't get it back. A media campaign was launched against the Kurds with slogans like “ Save Arabs in the Jazira! "And" Fight the Kurdish threat! “Started. This policy coincided with the Mustafa Barzani uprising in Iraqi Kurdistan and the discovery of oil reserves in the Kurdish areas of Syria. In June 1963, Syria took part in a military action by the Iraqis against the Kurds and provided aircraft, armored vehicles and 6,000 men. Syrian troops crossed the Iraqi border and moved towards Zaxo to pursue Barzani's fighters.
Reason
The Syrian government justified the extraordinary census by saying that Kurds from neighboring countries, particularly Turkey, illegally crossed the border. She also claimed that these Kurds settled there and gradually made up the majority in cities like Amude and Qamishli . She also said that many managed to illegally enroll in the Syrian population registers. The government also speculated that Kurds were planning to settle and acquire property, especially after the agricultural law reforms, in order to benefit from the reallocation of the land.
Because of this growing illegal immigration, the government conducted the census on October 5, 1962 with the aim of clearing the registers and identifying the illegal immigrants. In the end, more than 120,000 Kurds were identified as foreigners and entered in special registers. The remaining citizens checked were transferred to new civil registers.
The stateless Kurds are divided into two groups, the ajānib /أجانب / 'Foreigner' and maktūmīn /مكتومين / 'Hidden'. Ajānib receive civil identity documents, maktūmīn only in exceptional cases receive identity certificates from their responsible mayor ( muchtar ). Maktūmīn are subject to state restrictions to a greater extent than ajānib , so they do not receive any school leaving certificates and are not allowed to go to university.
criticism
According to some statements by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the extraordinary census is said to have been carried out arbitrarily. The members of the same family were classified differently. Some members of the same family have been declared citizens while others have been declared foreigners, suggesting the inaccuracy of the process; HRW also claims that some Kurds who did military service lost their citizenship, while others who bribed the officials were allowed to keep them. According to Human Rights Watch, the Syrian government is said to have declared many originally Kurdish residents to be foreigners and consequently violated their human rights when they withdrew their Syrian citizenship. Stateless Kurds cannot legally emigrate to another country because they have no papers. In Syria, they are not allowed to be employed in government agencies and companies, and they are not legally allowed to marry a Syrian citizen. Kurds with the status of foreigners do not have the right to vote or stand for election.
Reinstatements in the course of the Syrian civil war
In the course of the Syrian civil war , the Syrian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs announced in March 2011 that Kurds who do not have Syrian citizenship would now have a right to work. On the second weekend in April 2011, it was announced in Decree No. 49 that those Kurds within Syria who do not have any citizenship should receive Syrian ones. However, this only applies to registered stateless persons ( ajānib ). Unregistered stateless persons ( maktūmīn ) will not be considered and will continue to be deprived of their Syrian citizenship. According to the Syrian Ministry of the Interior, 51,000 re-naturalizations had been carried out by the end of September 2011.
literature
Muhammad Talab Hilal (Head of the Political Department of the Secret Service in Al-Hasakah): Study on the province of Al-Jazeera in national, social and political terms . Translated into German and provided with a foreword by Dr. Gundî Dilberz, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-942735-43-8 . In this study, a Syrian intelligence officer justifies the need for a discriminatory Syrian state policy towards the Kurds.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Stateless Kurds in Syria granted citizenship In: CNN. Retrieved September 18, 2013
- ↑ a b Stateless Kurds in Syria, report by Kurdwatch, March 2010, pp. 6-7 and 15 ff. (PDF; 559 kB)
- ↑ Îsmet Şerîf Wanlî: pp. 151–152
- ↑ a b c d Syria: The silenced kurds report by HRW from October 2006
- ^ Refugees International, Buried Alive, Stateless Kurds in Syria, January 2006, p. 3.4
- ↑ Kurdwatch, September 16, 2011
- ↑ Leukefeld, Karin: Again dead in Daraa. In: Neues Deutschland online , accessed on April 11, 2011.
- ↑ KURDWATCH, April 8th, 2011
- ↑ Kurdwatch, September 16, 2011