Editing Arabization (section)

===Arabization in Syria===
{{See also|Human rights in Rojava|Arab Belt|label 2=Arab Belt Project|Qamishli massacre}}

Since the independence of Syria in 1946, the ethnically diverse [[Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria|Rojava]] region in northern Syria suffered grave human rights violations, because all governments pursued a most brutal policy of Arabization.<ref name="HRW-1996">{{cite web|title=SYRIA: The Silenced Kurds; Vol. 8, No. 4(E)|url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/Syria.htm|website=Human Rights Watch|date=1996}}</ref> While all non-Arab ethnic groups within Syria, such as [[Assyrian people|Assyrians]], [[Armenians]], [[Iraqi Turkmen|Turcomans]], and [[Mhallami]] have faced pressure from [[Arab Nationalism|Arab Nationalist]] policies to identify as ''Arabs'', the most archaic of it was directed against the [[Kurds]]. In his report for the 12th session of the UN [[Human Rights Council]] titled ''Persecution and Discrimination against Kurdish Citizens in Syria'', the [[Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights|United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights]] held:<ref name="OHCHR-2009">{{cite web|title=Persecution and Discrimination against Kurdish Citizens in Syria, Report for the 12th session of the UN Human Rights Council|url=http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/session12/SY/KIS-KurdsinSyria-eng.pdf|website=Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights|date=2009|access-date=25 June 2015|archive-date=25 October 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161025095237/http://lib.ohchr.org/HRBodies/UPR/Documents/session12/SY/KIS-KurdsinSyria-eng.pdf|url-status=dead}}</ref> <blockquote>"Successive Syrian governments continued to adopt a policy of ethnic discrimination and national persecution against Kurds, completely depriving them of their national, democratic and human rights – an integral part of human existence. The government imposed ethnically-based programs, regulations and exclusionary measures on various aspects of Kurds' lives – political, economic, social and cultural."</blockquote>

The [[Kurdish language]] was not officially recognized, it had no place in public schools.<ref name="HRW-1996" /><ref name="OHCHR-2009" /><ref name=Tejel>{{cite book|first=Jordi |last=Tejel |url=http://www.kurdipedia.org/books/74488.pdf |title=Syria's kurds history, politics and society |year=2009 |publisher=Routledge |location=London |isbn=978-0-203-89211-4 |pages=X |edition=1. publ. |author2=Welle, Jane |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304001038/http://www.kurdipedia.org/books/74488.pdf |archive-date=4 March 2016 }}</ref> A decree from 1989 prohibited the use of Kurdish at the workplace as well as in marriages and other celebrations. In September 1992 came another government decree that children not be registered with Kurdish names.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War|last=Gunter|first=Michael M.|date=2014|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-1-84904-435-6|pages=21|language=en}}</ref> Also businesses could not be given Kurdish names.<ref name="HRW-1996" /><ref name="OHCHR-2009" /> Books, music, videos and other material could not be published in Kurdish language.<ref name="HRW-1996" /><ref name=Tejel /> Expressions of Kurdish identity like songs and folk dances were outlawed<ref name="OHCHR-2009" /><ref name=Tejel /> and frequently prosecuted under a purpose-built criminal law against "weakening national sentiment".<ref name="HRW-2010">{{cite web|title=HRW World Report 2010|url=https://www.hrw.org/world-report-2010|website=Human Rights Watch|date=2010}}</ref> Celebrating the [[Nowruz]] holiday was often constrained.<ref name="HRW-1996" /><ref name=Tejel />

In 1973, the Syrian authorities confiscated 750 square kilometers of fertile agricultural land in [[Al-Hasakah Governorate]], which were owned and cultivated by tens of thousands of Kurdish citizens, and gave it to Arab families brought in from other provinces.<ref name="OHCHR-2009" /><ref name="CSmonitor-2005">{{cite journal|title=A murder stirs Kurds in Syria|url=http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0616/p01s03-wome.html|journal=The Christian Science Monitor|date=16 June 2005 }}</ref> Describing the settlement policies pursued by the regime as part of the "Arab Belt programme, a Kurdish engineer in the region stated: <blockquote>"The government built them homes for free, gave them weapons, seeds and fertilizer, and created agricultural banks that provided loans. From 1973 to 1975, forty-one villages were created in this strip, beginning ten kilometers west of [[Ras al-Ayn|Ras al-'Ayn]]. The idea was to separate [[Kurds in Turkey|Turkish]] and [[Syrian Kurds]], and to force Kurds in the area to move away to the cities. Any [[Arabs|Arab]] could settle in [[Al-Hasakah|Hasakeh]], but no Kurd was permitted to move and settle there."<ref>{{Cite web |date=1 October 1996 |title=Syria: The Silenced Kurds |url=https://www.hrw.org/report/1996/10/01/syria-silenced-kurds#P241_41082 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151005235027/http://www.hrw.org/report/1996/10/01/syria-silenced-kurds |archive-date=5 October 2015 |website=[[Human Rights Watch]]}}</ref></blockquote>

In 2007, in another such scheme in Al-Hasakah governate, 6,000 square kilometers around [[Al-Malikiyah]] were granted to Arab families, while tens of thousands of Kurdish inhabitants of the villages concerned were evicted.<ref name="OHCHR-2009" /> These and other expropriations of ethnic Kurdish citizens followed a deliberate masterplan, called "Arab Belt initiative", attempting to depopulate the resource-rich Jazeera of its ethnic Kurdish inhabitants and settle ethnic Arabs there.<ref name="HRW-1996" />

After the Turkish-led forces had [[Operation Olive Branch|captured Afrin District]] in early 2018, they began to implement a resettlement policy by moving [[Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army]] fighters and Sunni Arab refugees from southern Syria into the empty homes that belonged to displaced locals.<ref name="conversion">{{cite web |url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/syria-yazidis-isis-islam-conversion-afrin-persecution-kurdish-a8310696.html |title=Yazidis who suffered under Isis face forced conversion to Islam amid fresh persecution in Afrin |author=Patrick Cockburn |work=[[The Independent]] |date=18 April 2018 |access-date=23 August 2018 }}</ref> The previous owners, most of them Kurds or [[Yazidis]], were often prevented from returning to Afrin.<ref name="conversion"/> Refugees from Eastern [[Ghouta]], [[Damascus]], said that they were part of "an organised demographic change" which was supposed to replace the Kurdish population of Afrin with an Arab majority.<ref name="conversion"/>