Last week we mentioned Canadian newspaper Metro’s article reporting discrimination of Kurdish language in Turkey. This week website Médiapart examines the situation of Kurds in Syria, whose fate seems even less enviable.

According to Maxime Azadi, a MediaPart blogger  relaying information from KurdWatch (website on human rights violations against the Kurds in Syria), Kurdish inmates of the Adra Prison, near Damascus, are no longer allowed to use their native language during telephone conversations with relatives. For several weeks now, Arabic has been the only language allowed, while many of these prisoners are unable to speak it.

Let us bear in mind that Syria’s Kurdish population is estimated at 2 million people (9% of total population). According to Maxime Azadi, it is prohibited to publish material in Kurdish, a charge carrying a penalty of 5 years in prison. It is also forbidden to listen to music and watch movies in that language, to teach and even speak in it at private parties. Maxime Azadi eventually discloses this paradox: despite pressures, massacres and negation faced by the Kurdish language, the number of speakers is stable (about 30 million in total) or even rising.