2005 Syrian Public Enemy no1 READ - LEARN - TEACH

[Anthea]

A murder that stirred Kurds in Syria

At a meeting of Syrian political-intelligence officers in late April in the Kurdish northeast, the only item on the agenda was Sheikh Mohammed Mashouq al-Khaznawi.

He was becoming a problem for Syria, says a Western diplomat familiar with the meeting.

A moderate Islamic cleric who once worked with the Syrian government to temper extremism, Sheikh Khaznawi was emerging as one of its most outspoken critics. He advocated Kurdish rights and democracy, galvanizing many of the Kurds against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, Kurds were gaining political power in Iraq, Lebanon was casting Syrian troops out, and the US was criticizing Syria's government.

"[Syrian intelligence] wrote a report saying he ... should be stopped. They said he would start a revolution," says Sheikh Murad Khaznawi, the eldest of Sheikh Mohammed's eight sons.

On May 10, the cleric disappeared in Damascus. Three weeks later, he was found dead.

His murder sent shock waves through Syria's marginalized Kurdish community, sparking mass demonstrations earlier this month and mobilizing a community that represents the most potent domestic threat to President Assad.

"The sheikh was a symbol for the Kurdish people and he wanted all the people to unite and struggle peacefully," says Hassan Saleh, secretary-general of Yakiti Party, a banned Kurdish group.

The Syrian authorities deny involvement in Khaznawi's killing. But analysts and diplomats note that the cleric's death coincides with a crackdown by Damascus against internal political dissent.

"The stability of Syria is in the hands of the Kurds," says Ibrahim Hamidi, correspondent of the Arabic Al Hayat daily. "They have a unique position. They are organized, they have an Islamic identity, regional support through the Kurds in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, international support with some European countries lobbying for them, and political status because of [the Kurdish empowerment in] Iraq."

Syria's Kurds comprise the largest non-Arab group in Syria. Most Kurds live in the Hasake province. The area's economic importance and the Baath Party's Arab nationalist ideology have ensured that the province has long been under firm state control.

In 1962, a year before the Baath Party took power, a census stripped around 120,000 Kurdish Syrians of their citizenship, reclassifying them as "foreigners," who carry red identity cards rather than passports. Soon that number had grown to 300,000.

In the early 1970s, thousands of Arabs were resettled on confiscated Kurdish property along a 200-mile strip on the Turkish border as part of an Arabization policy that included banning the teaching of Kurdish from schools.

During the 1990s, Syrian Kurds were permitted to fulfill their military service with the PKK, the Kurdish armed separatist group that was fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey. Damascus and Ankara signed a security pact in 1998 which ended Syria's support for the PKK. But, according to the diplomat, many Syrian Kurds slipped into northern Iraq to continue fighting with the newly resurgent PKK, which could have alarming implications for Damascus.

Still, there are indications that the government is taking the Kurdish dilemma more seriously. The government recently appointed Major General Mohammed Mansoura as head of Syria's powerful political security department. General Mansoura has extensive experience with the Kurds having headed the Hasake branch of military intelligence from 1982 to 2002.

Regardless of who killed Khaznawi, the death of the respected cleric has refocused attention on Syria's Kurds. Last week's Baath Party Congress referred to unspecified steps to help the Kurds - widely reported to involve granting citizenship to the 300,000 stateless Kurds.

But for many Kurds such government measures are too little too late. "The Kurds are really fed up. They don't care anymore," says Maan Abdelsalam, a Syrian civil rights activist.

FACT: The area where most Kurds live, is the main source of Syria's oil and gas reserves and a major center of cotton and wheat production. Not suprising everyone wants it.

[Anthea]

The story of Mashouq al-Khaznawi, whose words united Kurds and Islamists

Sheikh Murshid al KhaznawiMorshed Khaznawi is the son of the Kurdish Sheikh Mohammed Mashouq al-Khaznawi, kidnapped in Damascus on May 10, 2005, and subsequently murdered. He is also a sheik and a religious leader. Meeting with him is not easy, due to his caution about showing himself in public. We arranged a meeting at a private residence in a dusty neighborhood on the edge of Qamishli, and he arrived smiling and punctual, without the bodyguards and without the crowd of supporters who are the usual companions for politicians and religious leaders around here. He was wearing a white robe and cap, and his mere presence produced a reverent silence in the bystanders. His demeanor was open and calm, and he spoke as an experienced orator.

Mashouq al KhaznawiWho was your father, Sheikh Mohammed Mashouq al-Khaznawi?

My father was a moderate Islamic preacher. He was head of the Islamic Studies Center in Qamishli, and at the same time he collaborated with the Christian Islamic Committee. In his researches in the history of Islam he discovered many errors, both practical and theoretical, in Muslim thinking. He was opposed to what he called Islamic politics, which historically resulted in Muslims persecuting other religions, under the pretext of doing it in the name of God. True Islam, he maintained, condemned persecution, and as a consequence he could do no less than take that position with regard to the Syrian government and its treatment of the Kurds. He supported their claim for citizenship rights, and opposed terrorism as much in the United States as in Saudi Arabia. He was the sheik of moderate Muslims seeking justice, and he had no use for superstitious people who tried to gain favor with obsequious gestures.

Why was he killed?

Because his progressive positions made him odious to the regime, which, as often happens, preferred to support traditional preachers. Sheikh Mohammed Mashouq al-Khaznawi knew that the Kurds and the Muslim Brotherhood are the only viable opposition to the regime in Syria and that he, uniquely acceptable to both, had become an ever more troublesome individual. At first he was prohibited from preaching in his mosque and from traveling. Then a book he was going to publish was confiscated. Finally, when he committed the provocation of inviting a few foreign emissaries to visit Quamishly, Muqabarat’s agents spoke to him directly, putting him on notice that that particular action had crossed the line into a criminal act. After that he came to me and warned me about the death threats. He knew that he was in danger but he did not waver. On the anniversary of Farhad’s death—an activist tortured and killed while in custody—Sheikh Mashouq al-Khaznawi delivered a blistering discourse in which he encouraged the Kurds to fight for recognition of their rights as Syrian citizens. As he put it, “Take back with force what was stolen by oppression.”

Has the Government always denied responsibility for Sheikh Mohammed Mashouq al-Khaznawi’s abduction and murder?

The arrest order came directly from Maher, the president’s brother. But besides the fact that the authorities had warned him earlier, there are many points in their story that just do not stand up. For example, the date of his death: according to the official story, my father was probably suffocated with a pillow on May 12, 2005, in Aleppo and then was buried at Deir ez-Zor. On June first one of my brothers and I were detained and they brought us to Deir ez-Zor, where they showed us the body. His teeth were broken and his body was covered with signs of torture, bruises and burns. But it was clear that he was dead only a few days. His body was certainly well preserved for having been buried for three weeks under only two feet of dirt in the boiling desert of Deir ez-Zor. Then, they forbade us to talk about it. They told us to stay away from the media and especially from the Kurdish question. But we didn’t pay any attention. After they let us go we printed flyers in which we publicly accused the authorities of political murder. A few days later, on the occasion of the first sermon I had to preach after the death of my father, as soon as I left the pulpit I received a text message on my father’s cell phone: “Delivery failed.” From then on they have prevented me from preaching.

What can be done now?

From a legal standpoint our accusation against the state has no possibility of being considered. The evidence of politically motivated homicide has been communicated to Amnesty International, and maybe one day it will be weighted even in the Syrian courts. We are working on getting a foreign publisher for my father’s confiscated book. I am collecting his most notable writings to publicize his critical studies of Islam. His favorite saying was the Koranic maxim that “There is no compulsion in religion.” He taught the value of dialogue among cultures and the equality of the sexes. He often insisted that harmful discrimination against women in Muslim society was the result of a long series of negative traditions that have been impossible to root out because they have been considered—erroneously as it turns out—holy writ. For example, in Islamic law the testimony of one man is the equivalent of that of two women. How can we still uphold an idea of this kind? If women are less intelligent than any street sweeper in Damascus, why is it that when Condoleeza Rice raises her voice, all Arabs tremble with fear? Sheikh Mohammed Mashouq al-Khaznawi taught the importance of carefully distinguishing between Arabic culture and Islamic civilization. And, in the same spirit, he was able to call Jews his brothers while harshly criticizing the Israeli occupation of Palestine.