By Meredith Lee-Clark
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East

DAMASCUS, Syria – Amnesty International recently released its annual report on Syria, reporting that the Middle Eastern nation continues to stifle freedom of expression and free association, particularly among its ethnic minorities.

As recently as April, the Syrian Supreme State Security Court reaffirmed its nation-wide ban on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a  Kurdish separatist group, and sentenced five members to seven to eight years of imprisonment for plotting to “detach part of Syrian territory,” according to the National Organization for Human Rights in Syria (NOHRS).  The Supreme State Security Court is a special court that operates outside of the criminal justice system, with the purpose of prosecuting those challenging the government.  Syria has been under an official state of emergency since 1963, which has given government security forces broad powers to arrest, detain, and imprison those it views as dangerous dissidents.

Ethnic Kurds make up approximately ten percent of the Syrian population, and suffer restrictions on use of the Kurdish language and culture.  In September 2008, the Syrian government placed restrictions on Kurdish property and housing rights in sensitive border areas.   While confrontations between Arabs and Kurds receive the most media attention, Syria is home to many other ethnic minority groups, including Kurmandji and Aramaeans, all of whom are subject to the same restrictions on their cultural heritage.

The persecution of ethnic minorities may be part of a larger dialogue that has resumed between Syria and the United States, signaled by the meeting on June 12 between President Bashar al-Assad and U.S. envoy, former-Senator George Mitchell.  Relations between the two nations had chilled in 2004, when the U.S. imposed economic sanctions on Syria for accusations that Syria sponsored terrorism.  The sanctions had been extended several times.  Mitchell said he hopes Middle East peace talks will resume shortly.

For more information, please see:

Al-Jazeera – Syria welcomes US envoy Mitchell – 13 June 2009

American Chronicle – Amnesty International Report 2009 on Syria – 31 May 2009

Amnesty International – Report 2009—Syria – May 2009

Syria Today – Syrian state security court jails banned PKK members – May 2009

Human Rights Watch – Syria:  Dissolve the State Security Court – 24 February 2009