Syria gives Kurds citizenship after 50 yrs

[bemildred]

Source: AFP

DAMASCUS — Syria on Thursday granted citizenship to tens of thousands of Kurds on the same day that a legal committee completed draft legislation to replace nearly five decades of emergency rule.

A Facebook group also called for a "peaceful sit-in until freedom" at the Damascus headquarters of the Baath party to coincide with its 64th anniversary and urged countrywide "resistance on Friday to demonstrate despite our wounds."

President Bashar al-Assad gave citizenship to the country's Kurds, who are a majority in the northeast and who have been denied nationality for nearly half a century, the state news agency SANA reported.

"President Assad issued a decree granting Arab Syrian citizenship to people registered as foreigners in the (governorate of Hassake)," it said.

Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hllFqu2EWobymPF_DvlvC8iDt0tQ?docId=CNG.6f1a3c295003e2f3af5b879590880652.221

[drm604]

1. Truly, the world is changing.

Free and open international communication is a powerful force. From Egypt to Syria to Wisconsin, the times they are a changin'.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Kicked and recommended for the Internet and democracy, it's only just beginning.

Thanks for the thread, bemildred.

[nalnn]

3. Cynicspeak warning.

This could be appeasement to placate the Kurds temporarily from forming a Greater Kurdistan.

[David__77]

4. So there is a place for Kurds in the Syrian Arab Republic.

There was always a national chauvinism woven in Arabism. These are "Arab republics," in which Islam and Arabs are given front place, and others more accessories. Not all states will be non-racist and secular, but I do think that is the historical trend in the long run.

[bemildred]

5. Syrian leader seeks to calm Kurdish unrest

Syrian President Bashar Assad made new concessions Thursday to the country's minority Kurdish population after some members joined pro-democracy demonstrators, threatening to create a new flank in Assad's political crisis.

The government said it would grant citizenship to hundreds of thousands of Kurds in the northeast who have been counted as illegal immigrants since a controversial census in 1962. That left them unable to secure public sector jobs, passports and other basic citizenship rights.

Kurds in the northeast demonstrated last Friday calling for citizenship, economic relief and the release of political prisoners.

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"What the regime is doing is a positive step toward the Kurds," said Sherkoh Abbas, a Kurdish human rights activist who also expressed solidarity with the larger pro-democracy movement. "Of course, all Syrians should be part of this process."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-syria-kurds-20110408,0,5789131.story