Kurds are the largest non-Arab ethnic minority in Syria, comprising about 8.5 to 10 percent of the population of 13.8 million. This report documents the situation of stateless Syrian-born Kurds -- 142,465 by the government's count, and well over 200,000 according to Kurdish sources -- who have been arbitrarily denied the right to Syrian nationality in violation of international law.
In 1962, an exceptional census stripped some 120,000 Syrian Kurds --20 percent of the Syrian Kurdish population -- of their Syrian citizenship. They were left stateless.
The census was one component of a comprehensive plan to Arabize the resources-rich northeast of Syria, an area with the largest concentration of non-Arabs in the country.
International human rights law provides ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities in every country the right to equal protection of the law without discrimination, and the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, or to use their own language. Syrian authorities violate these international standards with impunity through the use of discriminatory laws, decrees and directives that are applied only to the Kurdish minority.
Suppression of the ethnic identity of Kurds by Syrian authorities has taken many forms. Restrictions have included: various bans on the use of the Kurdish language; refusal to register children with Kurdish names; replacement of Kurdish place names with new names in Arabic; prohibition of businesses that do not have Arabic names; not permitting Kurdish private schools; and the prohibition of books and other materials written in Kurdish.
http://www.hrw.org/legacy/reports/1996/Syria.htm
