Statement of the Kurdish National Council on the occasion of March 12, 2004

Yekiti Media

The twentieth anniversary of the Kurdish people’s uprising in Syria, which broke out on March 12, 2004, is upon us. In response to the bloody massacre committed by the Syrian regime forces and its security services in the municipal stadium in Qamishlo city due to a strife created by the regime’s security services to entrap the Kurds and Arabs against the backdrop of a sports match between the Al-Fotwa teams from Deir Ez-Zour and Al-Jihad from Qamishlo.

To complete the plan, the regime forces fired live bullets at the command of the security officials, resulting in many martyrs and wounded. The next day, during the funeral of the martyrs’ bodies, the security services once again fired live bullets at the mourners and a second group of martyrs fell.

In response to the massacre committed by the regime in the city of Qamishlo, the Kurdish people rose up against the regime with peaceful protests and demonstrations, denouncing what happened, in all Kurdish cities and towns from Derik in the east to Afrin in the west, passing through Sari Kaniye, Hasakah and Kobani, as well as in all areas of the Kurdish presence in Syria, until it reached Aleppo and the capital, Damascus.

The March 12 Uprising was a natural, sincere reaction from the Kurdish people, rejecting all the chauvinistic and racist projects and exceptional policies applied against them. The uprising united the Kurdish people in Syrian Kurdistan, restored their self-confidence, and brought the Kurdish issue in Syria to the international arena, as the issue of a people living on their land who are deprived of their most basic national rights. The uprising shook the pillars of tyranny and broke the barrier of fear in the Syrian street.

In order to suppress it, the security services instructed their agents within some Arab tribes in Hasakah city to attack the homes and shops of the Kurds and plunder their property with the aim of turning it into a civil war between the Kurds and the Arabs.

The Kurdish political movement was alert to the regime’s attempts to create strife, and it communicated with Arab tribal leaders and alerted them of the regime’s tricks. It held the regime responsible for what happened.

In commemoration of the uprising and in fulfillment of the blood of its martyrs, the Kurdish political movement decided to make March 12th of each year the Kurdish Martyr’s Day in Syrian Kurdistan.

On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the uprising that united the Kurdish people in Syria, the Kurdish National Council in Syria affirms its firm position in working to unify the Kurdish position towards national issues and the fate and aspirations of the Kurdish people and to defend their authentic historical presence in their regions and their legitimate national rights. It aspires with all Syrians for Syria to be a democratic state, multi-national, multi-cultural and multi-religious federation whose constitution guarantees the national rights of all components of the Syrian people.

The Council believes in joint work with the Syrian national forces for a democratic Syria, and calls on the international community to accelerate the political solution in accordance with UN Resolution 2254. The Council also works to create appropriate opportunities to return our people in Sari Kaniye, Til Abyad and Afrin to their homes, and rejects all the violations that occur there and attempts at demographic change in the Kurdish regions and other Syrian regions. In the Kurdish areas under the control of the Democratic Union Party and its militants, the Council rejects all violations that occur there, and condemns the intimidatory practices carried out by the Revolutionary Youth Movement in Kobani, Amouda, and Derbasiye a few days ago, as well as the arrest of members and supporters of the Kurdish National Council.

These intimidatory acts and the difficult economic situation lead to more anxiety and instability and pushes more of our people’s energies to migrate and empty the region of its indigenous population.

The Kurdish National Council in Syria pledges to our people that it will remain loyal to the blood of the martyrs of the uprising, and will work to secure the national rights of our people in a federal, democratic Syria.

n commemoration of the uprising, we call on the masses of our people to light candles on the eve of Martyr’s Day, and on Martyr’s Day to stand for five minutes of silence for the souls of the martyrs at eleven o’clock in assembly centers and public places.

Mercy to the souls of the martyrs.

Shame and disgrace to criminal killers

General Secretariat of the Kurdish National Council Qamishlo,

March 10, 2024