ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan — Syrian security forces exercised a systematic crackdown on “nationalistic” Kurdish activities and the “treachery” of Kurdish cultural expression prior to and during the ongoing war in Syria, according to the Washington-based Syria Justice and Accountability Centre (SJAC).The CJAC report, entitled ‘Walls Have Ears: An Analysis of Classified Syrian Security Sector Documents’, is the result of a pilot analysis of documents from abandoned Syrian government offices and was published last month.The documents were secured by the SJAC when they entered abandoned facilities in Tabqa and Raqqa in 2013 and in Idlib in 2015, all places with sizeable Kurdish minorities. They claim in the report that the facilities were open and unprotected upon entry.“The documents show clearly that orders were very centralized and came from really high-level officials, including from heads of the security agency themselves, and in lots of documents from the National Security Office,” said Mohammad Al-Abdallah, the director of the SJAC.Security forces “directly ordered the disruption of planned or suspected protests,” including protests in response to the death of a Kurdish girl during Newroz (Kurdish new year) celebrations in Spring 2010 and International Workers’ Day protests in 2010.Some ordered for increased permissions to be required specifically for Kurds to publicly gather, and patrols were deployed to prevent Kurds from meeting or gathering, according to the report.The diluting the ethnic makeup of Kurdish areas “to dismantle the Kurdish communities” and prevent Kurds from being the majority ethnic group in any region in order to better control their political activities was also proposed.More indirect proposals to affect the demographics of areas with a large Kurdish population included increasing the levels of permission needed for Kurds to buy or sell land and property.To combat the “treachery” of Kurdish cultural expression to the Syrian nation, it was proposed by security forces that steps be taken to encourage Kurds to identify more strongly as Syrian through “national and pan-national events to develop the feeling that they are a part of the Syrian social fabric away from any foreign links or loyalties.”Instead, assimilation often took on coercive methods, including surveillance, criminalization, threats from security forces and nearby Arab tribes, and the “closing off” of Kurdish towns. One document called for the use of the “Turkish method for handling the Kurdish situation.”It is hoped that the records can be used alongside other forms of evidence to build cases against both the Syrian state and specific individuals.While the majority of the documents analysed are from 2011-13, the beginning of the Syrian uprising, Kurdish political resistance and resulting state repression far predates it.Kurds in Syria were subject to a wide range of repressive measures under Baath party rule. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds were stripped of their citizenship, Kurdish-majority areas along the Turkish border saw mass population transfers, and restrictions on the use of the Kurdish language were imposed.In 2004, at least 30 Kurds were killed in a government crackdown after riots in the northern Syrian city of Qamishli. This marked a turning point for Kurdish protest in Syria, with a more assertive demand for rights that had yet to be granted to Kurds.The Syrian authorities responded by announcing that they would no longer tolerate any Kurdish gathering or political activity. According to a 2009 Human Rights Watch report, Syrian security forces repressed at least 14 political and cultural public gatherings between 2005 and 2009.The Syrian uprising began as pro-democracy protests in March 2011. They were met with violent state retaliation, which morphed into a war of eight years, claiming the lives of approximately 400,000 people and displacing over 6 million people.Approximately 30 percent of Syria is now controlled by the multi-ethnic, predominately-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).The ruling authorities recently have declared regions under their governance as the Autonomous Administration of North and East of Syria. Many of their territorial gains came during the conflict with the Islamic State (ISIS).The SDF has been the partnered ground force of the US-led international anti-ISIS coalition; however, US officials were adamant this week that they are not supporting any bids in Syria for independence.The dominant Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) has affirmed on numerous occasions that it does not want to secede from the Syrian state, instead seeking decentralization to allow for de facto Kurdish autonomy.

Through most of the Syrian war, Kurdish forces and government forces have avoided full-scale conflict. Kurdish politicians repeatedly have said they are open to conditioned dialogue with Damascus.