Syrian Citizenship Disappeared 11. Steps preceding the 2011 Decree No. 49 granting nationality to ajanib: The Kurdish movement in Syria46 continues to raise the statelessness issue in national and international forums, through petitions or sit-ins in Syria and around the world. On 8 June 1990, independent Kurdish deputies in The People’s Assembly Abdelhamid Darwish, Kamal Darwish and Fouad Aleko, collected signatures of 44 MPs on a petition requesting the inclusion of the statelessness issue in the general debate. On 10 March 1992, 32 MPs signed a petition addressed to the then President “Hafez al-Assad”, demanding the lifting of the injustice that had befallen stateless Syrian citizens. In 2000 the “Kurdish Parties Forum” in Syria made a petition to the ninth Syria’s ruling Baath Party regional conference calling for resolving the ajanib and maktumeen legal status. On 18 August 2002, dozens of stateless Syrian Kurds gathered in front of the Ministry of the Interior. The same year, others held a sit-in at the People’s Assembly. Dozens of other activities and hundreds of political seminars took place in that regard.47 Subsequently, harassment of Syrian Kurds increased after they staged large-scale demonstrations, marred by violence, throughout northern Syria in March 2004. The Syrian authorities responded to the protests using lethal force, killing at least 36 people and injuring more than 160. More than 2,000 people, were arrested and widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment of detainees emerged.48 The tenth Syria’s ruling Baath Party regional conference, held on 6-9 June 2005, recommended the offset of the 1962 census consequences, as well as the development of the Eastern Region/al-Jazira.49 46 As mentioned previously, the first Kurdish party in Syria was declared in 1957. 47 For more info, read: Faisal Yusuf, “The 1962 Exceptional Census in Al-Hasakah Province, A Stark Violation of the Rights of Citizenship”, The Civilized Dialogue, 9 August 2003; http://www.m.ahewar.org/s. asp?aid=9104&r=0 (Last visit: 6 August 2018). 48 Syria: “A Wasted Decade; Human Rights in Syria during Bashar al-Asad’s First Ten Years in Power”, Human Rights Watch, 16 July 2018; https//:www.hrw.org/ report/2010/07/16/wasted-decade/human-rights-syriaduring-bashar-al-asads-first-ten-years-power (Last visit: 3 August 2018). 49 The concluding statement of the tenth regional confer- The stateless issue was also raised dozens of times by journalists who held direct meetings with Syrian officials, activists and Kurdish parties. On 27 December 2005, journalist Serdad Ak Inan, from Turkish Sky News T.V. Station, held a meeting with President Bashar al-Assad: Is there also a change in the Syrian vision with regard to the Kurdish problem in Syria? The answer was: “The Kurds are an integral part of the social structure in our region. This issue must be taken into consideration. But we have to separate between terrorist operations or extremist parties from the Kurdish problem. Terrorism must be dealt with separately in any society. The second point concerning the Kurdish problem in Syria is a technical one and it is related to the 1962 census in Syria. This census was not accurate from the technical point of view. There was not, in essence, a political problem towards the Kurdish question. We, in Syria, try to solve this problem technically. But everything relating to this question must be based on a national basis and on the history of Syria which did not change since independence and will not change in the future.”50 Under President Bashar al-Assad, the Syrian government’s attitudes towards the statelessness and the 1962 census issue are confusing, as the President briefly re-mentioned them in his inaugural speech at the People’s Assembly on Wednesday, 18 July 2007: ence, 6-9 June 2005, Baath Arab Socialist Party: National Leadership, for more info see: http://www.baath-party.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=117:117&catid=34&Itemid=306&lang=ar 50 President Bashar al-Assad giving an interview to the Turkish Sky News T.V. Station, source: Syrian Arab News Agency - SANA. Damascus, 27 December 2005. For more info see: http://www.presidentassad.net/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=115:president-assad-turkish-tv-interview-december-28-2005&catid =97&Itemid=468 17