| A Kurdish leader, Aziz Daud, called Sunday for the authorities to draw up a law authorising political parties in Syria, following a warning that the Kurds' unofficial movements would no longer be tolerated. "The decision to repressively ban the Kurdish movements will provide neither security nor calm," he said. "The solution would be to pass a law" on the creation of political parties, said Daud, who is secretary general of the Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party, in a statement. "The Kurdish political parties are patriotic movements which have been in Syria ever since independence (in 1946). They will not halt their political activities," insisted Daud. "Their presence in Syria is like that of the National Progressive Front parties and banning them amounts to a discrimination against the Kurdish people," he said, in a reference to the country's ruling seven-party coalition. A human rights activist, lawyer Anwar al-Bunni, said Thursday the Syrian authorities had warned Kurdish leaders that their unofficial movements would no longer be tolerated, amid a crackdown on the minority. The Yakiti party's Fuad Alliko, Daud and Kurdish socialist leader Saleh Kaddo were warned to "wait for the passing of a new law on political parties" before resuming activities, he said. |