DAMASCUS, 8 June 2004 — Syria’s ruling Baath Party has decided to ban all unofficial political parties and groups which have so far been tolerated, lawyer and human rights activist Anwar Al-Bunni told AFP yesterday. “The regional leadership of the party has taken a decision to ban all political, cultural and media activities, and to persecute those who do not heed this,” Bunni said.
“This decision impacts on all the political parties and associations in Syria, including the Kurdish ones,” he added. There has been no official confirmation of the decision but Bunni said leaders of Syria’s Kurdish minority have recently been warned that their activities would no longer be tolerated. “It means that these parties and groups will need the permission of the authorities for any activity, even cultural,” the lawyer said.
Kurdish leader Aziz Daud vowed on Sunday that the ban will not stop parties representing the country’s 1.5 million Kurds, some nine percent of Syria’s population, from operating.
“The Kurdish political parties are patriotic movements which have been in Syria ever since independence (in 1946). They will not halt their political activities,” insisted Daud, the secretary-general of the Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party.
Daud, called for the authorities to draw up a law authorizing political parties in Syria. “The decision to repressively ban the Kurdish movements will provide neither security nor calm,” he said.
“The solution would be to pass a law” on the creation of political parties, said Daud in a statement. “Their presence in Syria is like that of the National Progressive Front parties and banning them amounts to a discrimination against the Kurdish people,” he said, in a reference to the country’s ruling seven-party coalition.
The Yakiti party’s Fuad Alliko, Daud and Kurdish socialist leader Saleh Kaddo were warned to “wait for the passing of a new law on political parties” before resuming activities, he said. Deadly clashes between Kurds and security services in Kurdish areas of northern and northeastern Syria in March sparked a crackdown against the minority.
Syrian Kurdish groups complained authorities continued with the repressive measures, making hundreds of unfair arrests, although more than 300 have been freed since mid-May. The Kurds, estimated to total 1.5 million, represent around nine percent of the Syrian population.
