Shafaq News- Damascus

A civil initiative seeking official status for the Kurdish language and constitutional guarantees for mother-tongue education was launched in Syria's northeastern city of Qamishli on Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.

According to SOHR, the independent initiative seeks to enshrine Kurdish linguistic, cultural, and educational rights in Syria's permanent constitution and national legislation. Its organizers said they would pursue these goals through peaceful legal advocacy, constitutional research, draft legislation, submissions to constitution-drafting bodies, academic conferences, and cooperation with universities, research centers, and cultural institutions. They also plan to document educational conditions and linguistic rights, publish studies and reports, and raise public awareness of cultural diversity.

The initiative further called on UNESCO, UNICEF, and other international organizations to support multilingual education research, protect Syria's cultural and linguistic heritage, and encourage dialogue on international models for protecting linguistic diversity. Its organizers said constitutional recognition should guarantee equal rights for all Syrians while preserving the country's unity, sovereignty, and territorial integrity.

On January 16, Syrian transitional President Ahmad Al-Sharaa issued a decree recognizing Kurdish as a national language and permitting its teaching as an elective subject or cultural activity in schools in areas with significant Kurdish populations, without granting it official status alongside Arabic. In August, Syria's Education Ministry expanded Kurdish-language instruction to three weekly classes. Students and teachers then protested in Qamishli, demanding broader mother-tongue education and official recognition.