By Stella Youssef
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – For decades, Syria‘s Kurds celebrating Newroz have been subjected to attacks motivated by racial and ethnic discrimination. Even though the perpetrators varied between the security services of the Syrian government, the Islamic State group (ISIS), and the Turkish-backed armed opposition factions, aka the Syrian National Army (SNA) but the victim remained the same.
Newroz is celebrated on March 21 by tens of millions throughout the Middle East, the Caucasus, Iran, the Balkans, and Central Asia. The meaning of Newroz is different in each culture, and is generally celebrated by lighting bonfires on the evening before.
Yet the millennia-old holiday bears a special significance for Kurds. Newroz represents renewal, liberation, and the victory of justice over injustice in the context of the Kurds’ ongoing struggle for survival, recognition, and peace.
SNA attack 2023
On March 20, 2023, three militants of Jaysh al-Sharqiya, an SNA faction which defected from the Ahrar al-Sharqiya, carried out a systematic crime against Kurds in the town of Jindires in the countryside of Afrin, northwestern Syria. The crime was likely incited by ethnic hatred against Afrin’s indigenous Kurdish population.
They shot to death five civilian Kurds, four from one family – Farah al-Din Othman, 43, Nazmi, 38, Muhammad Nazmi, and Muhammad – and wounded a child, for igniting the Newroz flame, which is a key ritual of celebrating the holiday, in front of their house.
On March 22, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Turkey, as an occupying power and as a backer of the local factions operating in areas under its control in northern Syria, to investigate these killings and ensure that those responsible are held accountable.
It also stressed that Turkey should cut all support to SNA factions implicated in recurring or systemic human rights abuses and international humanitarian law violations.
ISIS attack 2015
This March marks nine years since the explosion that occurred in the Mufti neighborhood of Hasakah in northeastern Syria. In 2015, on the eve of Newroz, while the residents danced and celebrated around fire, ISIS carried out two suicide attacks in the civilian neighborhood.
The attacks resulted in the killing of 50 civilians and the injury of more than 90 individuals, mostly women and children.
The first attack happened when an ISIS suicide bomber detonated a vest packed with highly explosive C4 among the civilians. The second attack was carried out among a large group of celebrators with a car bomb less than a minute later in the same neighborhood.
The Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria (Asayish) had canceled Newroz celebrations for security reasons after obtaining information that two suicide attacks were likely to happen on the day of Newroz. Hence the bombers carried the attacks the day before.
Syrian government forces attack 2008
Again in 2008 prior to the Syrian conflict, the same happened as Kurds were celebrating the Newroz flame in the city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria.
This March marks the 16th anniversary of the killing of three Kurdish men by the security forces of the Syrian government on the eve on Newroz. They were among a group of people who were shot at by the security forces while they lit the flames in celebration.
The three men, Muhammad Ramadan, Muhammad Khalil, and Muhammad Hussein hailed from the Gharbi neighborhood in Qamishli. The city’s resident now refer to the victims as the “Three Muhammads.”
Kurds continue to remember the lives that were lost throughout the years in the struggle for peace and justice, and honor the significance of Newroz as a symbol of freedom and overcoming oppression.