Civil society orgs. complain poor representation in the Constitutional Committee

A number of civil society organizations operating in northeastern Syria and Kurdistan Region Government (KRG) have filed a complaint note to the Office of the United Nations Envoy for Syria, and to the concerned countries in the Syrian crisis, denouncing what they called the marginalization of the role of civil society organizations in north and eastern Syria, within the Constitutional Committee.

Farooq Haji Mustafa, director of “Bercav Organization”, which organized a consultative meeting between these organizations in Erbil (Hawler), Kurdistan, said the Kurdish presence in the Constitutional Committee is very weak, noting that according to previous leaks, four members of civil society organizations from north and east Syria would be present in this Committee.
Mustafa stated to North-Press via a phone call that despite their previous objection to the weak representation of four members, but the representation has been reduced again to only two members, pointing out that although all this comes within the framework of leaks, “but we will treat them as facts due to the gravity of the matter”, he said.

In the note to the Office of the U.N. Special Envoy to Syria, the organizations called for a review of the mechanism for dealing with the list of civil society, as well as the reconsideration of the representation of civilian activists from the Kurdish areas in northeastern Syria regions.

The organizations expressed their concern over the removal of this mechanism for the role of the civil society in the future, in addition to the fear that this intervention by local, regional and international Syrian actors will become a reality and a tradition.
The organizations considered that relying on the discriminatory approach in the selection of names is fatal to the civilian scene. Looking at the civil and community issue from the perspective of political interest must be approached with caution by the envoy’s office particularly the Civil Society Chamber.
The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen has recently announced the formation of the constitutional committee, to be entrusted with the works on drafting Syria’s future constitution.
The committee is supposed to consist of 150 members, one-third of them from the opposition, represented by the High Negotiations Committee, one third from the Syrian government and the last third from the civil society.

The Autonomous Administration of north and east Syria has considered the results of the Constitutional Commission as “Non concerned”, noting that the committee took into account the sensitivity of Turkey more than the attention to the internal stability of Syria.