Syrian Citizenship Disappeared Hafez al-Assad, adopted provisional constitutions dominated by Ba’athist ideologies, the latest being the 1973 Constitution, which was still in force until 2012, a year after the onset of popular protests against tyranny.22 8.2. Discrimination against Syrian Kurds in particular: Like other Syrian peoples, Kurds have been subjected to serious human rights violations, but as an ethnic minority, they suffer identity-based discrimination, such as restrictions on the use of Kurdish language and on practicing Kurdish culture.23 Despite being the second largest ethnic group in Syria after Arabs24, Kurds’ language is not recognised as an official language in Syria, as the dissemination of materials in the Kurdish language has been banned since 1958, the banning of its use as a teaching language in schools and universities was reaffirmed by a “secret decree” issued in 1982, that also provided for its ban in all official institutions.25 Since the 1950s, Arabisation and Arab nationalism have been the founding principles of the policies of the successive governments of Syria, and the Kurdish identity seen as a threat to the unity of Arab Syria.26 The Ba’ath party, taking over power in 1963, kept denying Kurdish identity in the guise of strengthening Arab nationalism, by settling Arabs in the Kurds’ traditional place of residence. In 1965, it also designed an Arab belt, a cordon 22 Nael Georges, “The Kurds and the Syrian system”, Suwar Magazine, 27 June 2018. (Last visit: 5 August 2018). http://www.suwarmagazine.org/details/%D8%A 7%D9%84%D8%A3%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%A7%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B8%D9%88%D9%85%D 8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%88%D9%84%D8 %A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8 A%D9%91%D8%A9/1147/category_health.html . 23 Syria: “Kurds in the Syrian Arab Republic one year after the events of March 2004 “, Amnesty International, public document, 28 February 2008. (Last visit: 7 August 2018). https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/88000/mde240022005ar.pdf 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Syria: “Group Denial; Repression of Kurdish Political and Cultural Rights in Syria”, Human Rights Watch, 26 November 2009 (Last visit: 5 August 2018). https:// www.hrw.org/report/2009/11/26/group-denial/repression-kurdish-political-and-cultural-rights-syria 12 between the Syrian and neighboring Kurds along the borders with Turkey and Iraq. The Belt was planned to be some 15 kilometers wide (about 9 miles) and 280 kilometers long (about 174 miles), along the Syria-Turkey border, aiming at emptying the included towns from Kurds. The government started executing the settlement plan in the early 1970s but under a new terminological cover: for the Arab belt, the government substituted “plan to establish model state farms in the Jazira province.” Under this new justification, the government would build “model farming villages” in the Kurdish regions and populate them with Arabs. It expropriated the lands on which it built these ‘model farms’ from Kurdish owners, either under the guise of land reform or because the owners were Kurds whose citizenship had been withdrawn in 1962 because they had failed to prove their residency under that year’s census.27 In 1975 the government resettled an estimated 4,000 Arab families whose own lands had been submerged by the construction of the Tapqa dam on the Euphrates in ‘model farms’ in the very heart of the Kurdish region. The government suspended the Arab belt project in 1976 but never dismantled the model villages nor returned the Kurds who had been displaced from their land.28 To date, Kurds have been still banned from practicing certain professions, receiving the aid provided to Arabs, and to celebrate Kurdish holidays. Despite sharing repression, religion and race, the Syrian Kurds are still unable to form strong political parties of mass attraction. They currently have at least fourteen parties, most of which are marginal, led by one man, the leader, who makes most the decisions.29 27 To know more about the Arab belt and the names of the Arabic towns included, please read the following references: Ali Salih Mirani, The policy of national discrimination and the campaigns of Arabization of the existing government in Kurdistan – Syria, 7 August 1928 - 5 October 2008”, historical and political study. Center for Kurdish Studies and Documents Conservation / Duhok University, First Edition 2009. 28 Syria: “Group Denial; Repression of Kurdish Political and Cultural Rights in Syria”, Human Rights Watch, 26 November 2009.(Last visit: 5 August 2018). https:// www.hrw.org/report/2009/11/26/group-denial/repression-kurdish-political-and-cultural-rights-syria 29 Barak Barfi, The Fractious Politics of Syria’s Kurds, The Washington Institute, 18 December 2013.(Last visit: 6 August). https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/ar/policy-analysis/view/the-fractious-politics-of-syrias-kurds