Thomas McGee
Children born to Yezidi survivors of genocidal rape during Islamic State (ISIS) captivity are likely to face a future interspersed with difficult realizations about the tragic circumstances of their coming into this world. In the shadow of the trauma endured by their mothers, many are subject to the legacy of genocide. One such manifestation is their civil documentation predicament, as they are trapped between the risks of statelessness and the possibility of acquiring a dangerously stigmatized nationality that associates the children with their perpetrator fathers. Considering the human rights and best interests of such children, this article unpacks the legal, religious and social dimensions that complicate their ability to access the right to a nationality, and traces the evolving community discourse on the issue. The central claim is that in exceptionally tragic circumstances, accessing a stigmatized form of nationality may be just as problematic as the plight of remaining stateless. Despite some initial ‘creative’ informal solutions to the problems the laws have failed to solve, the article concludes by turning to the international community to fill the gap in protection available to these children.[1]

=KTML_Link_External_Begin=https://www.kurdipedia.org/docviewer.aspx?id=606544&document=0001.PDF=KTML_Link_External_Between=Click to read Born of ISIS Genocide: Risk of Statelessness and Stigmatised Nationality Acquisition for Children of Yezidi Survivors=KTML_Link_External_End=

Double Trouble: Analyzing the Impact of Statelessness on the Status of Kurdish Women.
Writing By: Maya Garfinkel
Edited by: Sophia Perring and Olivia Gumbel
FLUX: International Relations Review.
[1]
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Thomas McGee, Zahra Albarazi

While statelessness is not a new problem for Syria, the civil war has brought about additional risks and instances of becoming stateless. It has also transformed situations and vulnerabilities for those who already lacked Syrian citizenship. Greater efforts are urgently needed to understand the impacts of statelessness within post-conflict and forced displacement contexts, and as a platform for change there needs to be heightened understanding and identification of the issue. This article will outline the characteristics of the main stateless profiles, and then will go on to focus on the challenges and need for identification of stateless persons and risks of statelessness.[1]

=KTML_Link_External_Begin=https://www.kurdipedia.org/docviewer.aspx?id=606681&document=0001.PDF=KTML_Link_External_Between=Click to read Eight Years of Displacement: Syria’s Statelessness Still Unidentified=KTML_Link_External_End=

Title: Exploring #Statelessness# in Iran
Author: Dr. Jason Tucker
Place of publication: Niederland
Publisher: Tilburg university
Release date: 2014.[1]

Title: From Syria to Europe: Experiences of Stateless Kurds and Palestinian Refugees from Syria Seeking Protection in Europe
Publisher: European Network on statelessness
Release date: 2019

As part of a joint StatelessJourneys project, the Institute on Statelessness and Inclusion (ISI), ASKV Refugee Support and the European Network on Statelessness (ENS) are publishing a new report From Syria to Europe exposing the experience of stateless refugees at different stages of their journey.
Statelessness is an overlooked and often invisible issue playing out in the context of refugee arrivals to Europe every day. Yet, according to Eurostat, 95,000 people who applied for asylum in the EU between 2015 and 2017 were recorded as ‘stateless’, of ‘unknown nationality’, or their nationality was recorded as ‘Palestine’. Although the figures demonstrate that the group concerned is significant, the EU has yet to develop a dedicated response to identify and address the specific needs of stateless refugees. Moreover, most countries in Europe are inadequately prepared to respond. Only a handful of states have statelessness determination procedures in place.

The research focuses on two communities: stateless Kurds from Syria and stateless Palestinians from Syria and examines how lack of nationality affects their experience of the migration process and impacts on their opportunities for protection and durable solutions. The research looked at their country of origin (Syria), a key transit country through which they often travel to get to Europe (Greece), and one of the destination countries (the Netherlands).[1]

Kurdistan on the Sevres Centenary: How a Distinct People Became the World’s Largest Stateless Nation.
By #Loqman Radpey#.
Nationalities Papers, 29.09.2021, 1–30.
In August 1920, the political fate of the Kurdish nation, along with its territory, Kurdistan, were on the line, after the Allies asserted their interest in national rights to self-determination following World War I. Under the Treaty of Sèvres, Kurds were acknowledged as an ethno-political entity in the Wilsonian perspective, yet the ideal of self-determination failed to crystallize as a full legal right to independent nationhood. Thus, Kurdish statehood was annulled. In contrast, the drawing of states’ boundaries in Europe took place mostly along national lines. The result has been an untenable diversity across regions affected by the War in the varieties of self-determination, arguing that some peoples’ nationhood was credited with less legitimacy than others. The departure of imperial powers and subsequently the League of Nations from self-determination for achieving territorial independence came as a result of imperialist world policies to reorder political influence. With the adoption of self-determination as one of the purposes of the UN in 1945, and with the crystallization of self-determination as a legal right in 1966 and the subsequent campaign of decolonization, it could be argued the Kurds’ status was not repositioned and in some way is invisible to the law of self-determination, as applied. [1]
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By Dr. #Hawzhin Azeez#
The Lausanne treaty resulted in catastrophic consequences for the Kurds, the most obvious of which was statelessness. However, long after the imposition of the treaty, the Kurds continued to suffer a range of state imposed policies and consequences that affected their capacity to live with basic human rights and dignity. One such repercussion was the ongoing questioning of Kurdish citizenship and loyalty to the newly formed states that emerged in the early 20th century, including in Turkey, Iraq and Syria. This issue was to have disastrous outcomes for a specific group of Kurds in Western Kurdistan (Rojava), Northern Syria.

As the newly formed regimes attempted to consolidate their vision of a unified nation-state, progressively violent and oppressive policies and decrees were imposed on minorities such as the Kurds in order to pressure them into towing the official state identity lines. This process often included severely repressive measures that curbed Kurdish identity, culture and linguistic rights. Often such policies bordered on linguicide and culturicide. One of the most unjust impact of the Lausanne Treaty was the revoking of hundreds of thousands of citizenship and national identity of Kurds in Syria, resulting in a state of inhumane existence devoid of basic rights such as access to education, healthcare, employment, marriage, property and more.

From Turkey to Iraq

In Turkey, pogroms, ethnic cleansings, forced migrations, executions and arbitrary murder and disappearances from the 1920’s onward were the norm. Kurdish culture and language were barred until the 1990s, and a range of systemic Turkification policies were implemented for decades to permanently change the Kurdish demographic in the country. This process involved the methodical destruction of thousands of Kurdish villages, with estimates close to half a million in some reports. Subsequently, the previously rural and agrarian nature of Kurdish society was irrevocably altered with millions forced to relocate in cramped urban regions. Poverty, low literacy rates, high birth rates, early marriages and a range of ongoing flow on effects characterized the majority of the Kurdish population in the region. Other repressive measures such as the village guard system was utilized to foment a sense of fear and terror as well as mistrust within Kurdish society. This policy was designed to slowly but surely disintegrate the social fabric of Kurdish society.

In Iraq, while the cultural and linguistic repression were not on par with that of Turkey’s chauvinistic approach, increasing policies of Arabization, assimilation and ethnic cleansing became the norm as the century drew to a close. The horrific policies of the genocidal Al-Anfal Campaign resulted in thousands of disappeared men and boys, hundreds of thousands of widowed women, thousands killed through the use of illegal chemical weapons, and many more permanently displaced and forced to flee to relative safety across the border to Iran and Turkey. Feyli Kurds were systematically round up and summarily shoved across the Iranian border on accusations of them being Iranian in origin. Similar to Turkey, the Ba’athist regime also eliminated close to half a million villages, corralling the Kurds into urban locations and thereby producing the same systemic approach of underdevelopment, poverty and discrimination against the Kurds as Turkey had implemented. Additionally, following Saddam’s 1991 attempt at invading Kuwait sanctions and the disastrous ‘Oil for Food’ program was implemented. The Iraqi regime immediately applied an internal sanction on the Kurdish dominated regions of the North resulting in the Kurds reaching starvation level poverty and economic deprivation which remained in effect until the 2003 US invasion of the country.

The Kurds in Syria

Like Turkey, Iraq, and Iran, the Syrian regime consistently violated international human rights laws, including ones it was signatory to with impunity when it came to the Kurds. From introducing arbitrary discriminatory directives and laws, including demographic engineering, the objective of which was consistently to limit, erase and outright eradicate Kurdish presence and identity. Yet, despite the clear and obvious presence and implementation of these discriminatory laws, the international community has historically shown a distinct lack of interest in the plight of the Kurds, empowering these regimes to implement increasingly repressive laws and redistrict the basic rights of the Kurds.

While the situation was slightly better for the Kurds in Syria since the Kurdish population was relatively miniscule in comparison to those in Turkey, Iraq and Iran, by 1962, an exceptional census was imposed on the Kurdish dominated region of Hasaka (al-Hasakah) in the north of the country which overnight stripped the citizenship and basic human rights of over 200,000 Kurds. These Kurds, amounting to about 20% of the total Kurdish population in 1962, immediately became stateless and identityless.

The census was conducted in a single day and only in the Hasaka region, which contained the highest concentration of Syria’s Kurdish population. The region also contained Assyrians, Armenians, Chechens and other ethno-religious minorities. However, the fact that the census was only conducted in the Kurdish heavy populated region and that few other ethno-religious communities were so systemically stripped of citizenship, indicated that this was a policy directed primarily at the Kurds. The Decree No. 93 of August 23, or the so called “Supreme Arab Revolutionary Command of the Armed Forces”, which formed shortly after the collapse of the United Arab Republic ordered the urgent implementation of a census. The Republic was a political union between Syria and Egypt which existed from 1958-1961. It was the first step implemented towards establishing a pan-Arab state in the Middle East. It’s ultimate failure, however, resulted in the consolidation of power and authority within Syria which had found itself and its Arab identity weakened as a result of the union. Soon after, based on Decree No. 1 of 30-04-1962 and the ministerial decision No. 106 of August 23, 1962, a general census was conducted, only to be held in ‘one single day.’

According to a special report published in 1996 by Human Rights Watch (HRW), the decree was also “one component of a comprehensive plan to Arabize the resources-rich northeast of Syria, an area with the largest concentration of non-Arabs in the country.” According to others, such laws were introduced in line of “a broader backdrop of government-led discrimination and demographic engineering policies aimed at Syria’s Kurdish minority.” Ethnic cleansing and demographic change were the key objective of this policy.

To avoid losing their citizenship, the Kurds of Hasaka were required to prove not only their continued residency in Syria since 1945, but also provide a range of documentations and evidence which were near impossible to collect in such a short time frame. Many lacked the understanding of what was occurring, or failed to collect the appropriate documents in time. Others were not even aware of the census until the date, as government authorities did not dispense adequate information about the census and its effects to the population.

According to the reports by human rights organizations, the arbitrary nature of the census was beyond disastrous for the Kurds affected. Individuals from the same families and residing in the same villages were categorized as foreigners or as citizens. Siblings of the same families lost their citizenship while the parents retained theirs. In other cases, parents living with children in the same villages were stripped of their status. Families who were capable of bribing officials managed to escape the loss of their citizenship. Others who had served in the Syrian military were suddenly stripped of their documentations. Consequently, entire families, villages, tribes and communities were now separated and categorized now as ajanib (foreigners).

The Ministry of Interior proceeded to provide the affected Kurds with a special red identity cards marking them even further apart. These Kurds were stripped of a number of essential basic rights including the right to own and sell property, the right to vote in elections or referendums, and they could not run for public office. The immense difficulty facing these Kurds did not end there. They were ineligible to request government food subsidies or be admitted to public hospitals, further causing long term poverty, harm and indignity. They were not able to find employment at government institutions or any state-owned enterprises, therefore they could not become teachers, engineers, doctors, military personnel, judges or prosecutors. They were also not legally allowed to marry individuals with citizenship. If they did, their marriage was not legally recognized for both parties involved. Both individuals were legally deemed as ‘unmarried’ on their identity cards. They could not request a passport to legally travel internationally and return to Syria. This prevented many of the undocumented to attempt to leave and to escape the repressive situation. They were essentially imprisoned and trapped within the country, rendered voiceless and dehumanized, erased and non-existent.

The dehumanization of the 1962 Decree did not end there. Since the citizenshipless status of the Kurds was hereditary, the children of those stripped of their identity were also affected. The offspring of these people became known as maktoumeen (“unregistered,” or “not appearing in the records”) because they lacked any documentation. They essentially were non-humans, lacking any documentary evidence of their existence. Subsequently, by 1962-2011, the original number of 200,000 had exploded to over 517,000 people affected. The children of these families were allowed access to education only following much struggle and institutional prejudices and all were barred from gaining an education beyond the ninth grade.

These discriminatory policies were run in conjunction with a wider range of anti-Kurdish policies and laws including bans on the use of Kurdish language, and Kurdish children’s names were not registered for those still having citizenship status. All Kurdish names of cities, regions and villages were replaced with Arabic alternatives. Businesses could not have Kurdish names at risk of de-registration and closure. Privately run and owned Kurdish schools were banned to prevent the Kurds from filling the educational and linguistic gaps that were emerging. All books and material written in Kurdish were banned. Cultural dates and festivities such as Newroz were also banned from being practiced. Those daring to celebrate were beaten, shot at, arrested, or killed by regime forces. Kurdish activists were often harassed and arrested, dismissed from their jobs or studies. Additionally, discriminatory property laws deliberate prevented or heavily discriminated against the Kurds. Many of these racially discriminatory laws were enshrined in the Syrian constitution. According to the organization The Syrians for Truth and Justice: “With the unfair implementation of these legislations, the government exacerbated social fractures on the basis of national and area-based discrimination for decades.” The collective of these policies, but especially the status of the maktoumeen and the ajanib served as a state established and promoted instrument of marginalization and terror against the Kurds.

By 2011, following a number of conciliatory efforts by the Assad regime to address rising Kurdish dissent the regime implemented a new law that allowed the ‘foreigners’ to gain citizenship. By late 2013, allegedly 104, 000 had managed to regain their citizenship. By 2018, according to UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), the number had shrunk to just around 20,000. The maktoumeen, however, as of the last census in 2011 and numbering around 150,000 continue to remain undocumented.

A century after Lausanne

As a result of the post-Lausanne geopolitical terrain the Kurds were rendered permanently stateless, a status which has resulted in horrendous human rights violations including multiple genocides and ethnic cleansing programs, demographic changes, linguicides and culturicide- some of which are still ongoing and imposed on the Kurds. For a small group of Kurds, these policies went further. While other Kurds were rendered stateless, the ajanib Kurds and their offsprings in Syria, were conferred to a non-existing, non-being status where they lacked all citizenship and nationality of any form in contravention to a number of international human rights laws. They were seen as an example of how far the Syrian regime was willing to go to ensure the erasure of Kurdish identity and culture, and effectively served to terrorize and abort Kurdish nationalist efforts.

By 2011 as the Syrian Civil War gained ground and became increasingly bloody, the Kurds were the first to attempt to develop military and civic practices and institutions to safeguard their basic rights. The emergence of the legendary People’s Protection Units (#YPG)# and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) in the historic fight against ISIS, the establishment of democratic and confederal system of self-governance, democracy, multiculturalism and gender equality were all means implemented to counter the repressive and unjust policies that the regime had imposed on the Kurds and other minorities in the country for decades. Yet, almost a century since the signing of Lausanne the Kurds in Syria remain in an incredibly precarious position. Invaded and targeted by Turkey on the one hand, surrounded by a range of jihadist and extremist groups on the other, while retaining a precarious relationship with the regime which is increasingly regaining and consolidating its power, and an apathetic international community who only see the Kurds as cannon fodder in the fight against extremism- the Kurds in Syria walk a tight rope of insecurity, imperialism, regional geopolitics and global apathy. Lausanne may be a document signed by the powers over a century ago, but for the Kurds it continues to be a fiend that hunts them.

Author
Hawzhin Azeez

Dr. Hawzhin Azeez holds a PhD in political science and International Relations, from the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is currently Co-Director of The Kurdish Center for Studies (English branch) as well as the creator of The Middle Eastern Feminist. Previously she has taught at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), as well as being a visiting scholar at their CGDS (Center for Gender and Development). She has worked closely with refugees and IDPs in Rojava while a member of the Kobane Reconstruction Board after its liberation from ISIS. Her areas of expertise include gender dynamics, post-conflict reconstruction and nation-building, democratic confederalism, and Kurdish studies.[1]

Janet Klein

Thomas McGee
(PhD researcher at Peter McMullin Centre on Statelessness, University of Melbourne Law School) and Haqqi Bahram (PhD researcher at REMESO - Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society, Linköping University)

Until 2011, around 300,000 stateless Kurds in Syria comprised one of the largest groups in the world affected by de jure statelessness (defined in the 1954 Convention). Deprived of citizenship in Syria, these individuals have had complex experiences of statelessness due to another intersecting meaning of collective statelessness affecting Kurds at large. While the de jure definition applies to this sub-group of Kurds in Syria, it can be argued that all Kurds are stateless in the sense that they belong to a ‘stateless nation’. Such an experience of ‘double statelessness’ is shared by members of several other groups belonging to states that have not received fully international recognition, such as Palestinians and Sahrawis.

Back in 1962, the Syrian state held an exceptional census that discriminated to strip around 120,000 Syrian Kurds of their citizenship, rendering them stateless overnight. For decades, they remained in a cycle of exclusion and were divided according to the imposed labels of ajnabi (meaning ’foreigner’ in Arabic) and maktoum (meaning ’unregistered’). This remained the case until the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011 when a change in law allowed those registered as ajnabi (but not as maktoum) to naturalize.

Displacement to Europe
During the conflict, millions of Syria’s population - including Kurds (both stateless and citizens) - sought asylum abroad: largely in neighboring countries, but also in Europe. Many stateless Syrian Kurds in Europe, including those who arrived before 2011, struggled to prove their statelessness. They had to paradoxically prove a connection to a home country that never recognized them except as “foreigners”, “illegal residents” or “infiltrators”. This dynamic could be observed both while they were on the move and later, especially within asylum systems of Europe. Often struggling for recognition of their statelessness, they had to navigate a myriad of bureaucratic obstacles. This includes policies that fail to engage with the reality of statelessness as well as insensitive approaches within bureaucratic architectures serving reception and asylum processes. The failure to identify that they are stateless in the first place often then results in situations of legal and administrative limbo and structural exclusion.

In view of Syria being the country of origin for the largest number of asylum seekers in the EU since 2013, as well as having a large historic stateless population (including stateless Kurds), there was an evident need to generate an evidence base in order to protect the rights of stateless refugees and asylum seekers. As a response, the European Network of Statelessness and partners, within their ‘Stateless Journeys’ project on the relationship between statelessness and forced migration in Europe, produced a report tracing the migratory and asylum experiences of stateless Kurds and Palestinians from Syria. The report confirms how stateless Kurds have often experienced difficulties navigating the bureaucracies of the countries to which they had arrived. Such systems often fail to comprehend the complexities and lived realities of what being stateless means for those directly affected, resulting in misidentification of statelessness, discrimination, limited freedom of movement, and obstacles to inclusion in initiatives intended to provide durable solutions.

For stateless Syrian Kurds, there is often additional confusion around their legal status. Many stateless Kurds report struggling to convince officials of their statelessness as immigration and asylum authorities may label them as ‘disputed nationality cases.’ The methodologies used by the authorities to ‘determine’ the Country of Origin of these individuals are often questionable, such as over-reliance upon controversial language analysis exercises. Stateless Kurds are often recorded as of ‘unknown’ nationality rather than ‘stateless’, leading one such individual to describe himself as ‘a victim of both Syria and Europe as a person holding no nationality in this world.’

Indefinitely stateless
Naturalisation and access to citizenship are assumed to be – at least partial – solutions to the legal limbo in which stateless people often find themselves. However, naturalisation first requires the individual to establish his or her legal identity - often challenging in practice. This can exclude from naturalisation the very people who arguably need it the most.

Following the large influx of refugees to western Europe from 2015, many stateless Syrian Kurds also faced additional problems due to newly introduced ‘temporary’ asylum laws and associated residency policies, which (e.g. in Denmark and Sweden) can lead to ‘indefinite statelessness’. Inaccess to naturalisation procedures due to their status according to the law effectively deprives stateless asylum seekers and refugees of a pathway to end their statelessness. These barriers to durable solutions consequently can add to the sense of social exclusion that many stateless Kurds had experienced prior to displacement.

Social dilemmas of statelessness
Even for stateless Kurds who have managed to naturalise, social challenges and dilemmas of belonging may persist. Regardless of citizenship status, diaspora Kurds often struggle with feelings of alienation as members of a stateless nation - conceptualised as ‘social statelessness’. The social dimensions of statelessness for Syrian Kurds are arguably further entrenched by the several levels of their statelessness: the legacy of de jure statelessness, lack of belonging in host countries and absence of a Kurdish (home) state intersect as everyday social dilemmas for (formerly) stateless Syrian Kurds in Europe. This can lead to ambiguous self-identifications with the concept of statelessness and its associated systems of protection.

Sensitivity to intersecting notions of statelessness
While working for legal ‘solutions’, advocates must engage with the layers and nuances of intersecting statelessness for communities affected by complex forms of statelessness beyond the de jure definition alone, such as Palestinians, Sahrawis and Kurds of Syria. As statelessness is in essence a political issue, relating to multiple structures of power and exclusion, it is therefore critical that those working on the issue also sensitively navigate these realities.

The contents of this blog were originally published as a full article in French in an issue of Plein Droit journal dedicated to statelessness: Vol 128, ‘Apatridies’, March 2021: doi.org/10.3917/pld.128.0017.[1]

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – In December of last year, Yvo Kühling, an author from the Netherlands published the novel ‘Het Verbond van Vijf’ (‘The Covenant of Five’), in which the Kurdish issue and that of other stateless minorities plays a central role.
“The Kurds are with so many and still they have no state nor vote. Same goes for the Tamils, Sikhs, Uyghurs, Rohingya and Tatars, just to name a few,” he told Kurdistan 24 English in an interview.
So far, the book is only published in Dutch, but there are plans to translate the book also to English.

Is this your first novel? How old are you?
With 52 years of age, I am -as they say- in my juvenile fifties. ‘Het Verbond van Vijf’ (‘The Covenant of Five’) is indeed my first novel. For years now I have maintained the habit of composing one poem a day. About anything that inspires me. I consider this my mental yoga. At a certain point, readers encouraged me to commit to writing a longer work of fiction. A couple of years ago, I decided the time was right.

Not many Dutch novelists know or write about the Kurds. Why did you decide to involve Kurdish issue in your novel?
Once in the late nineties I ended up with my car in a demonstration. I saw people holding banners and waving with a flag I did not recognize. I started to read about the Kurdisch issue and wondered why the world is constituted in nation states. That minorities have no clear representation always stuck with me. I knew that one day I wanted to write about it, a story with a fast pace and quick turn of events. In my book, the Kurdish issue and that of countless other minorities became the central theme. The Kurds are with so many and still they have no state nor vote. Same goes for the Tamils, Sikhs, Uyghurs, Rohingya and Tatars, just to name a few.

In your book you focus on the United Nations and the fact that only nation-states can be admitted membership to the UN, not peoples without a state. Why did you decide to write about this specific subject?
Because I consider this a flaw in our current world order. If all unrepresented people unite, they form the third biggest country in the world. The Charter of the United Nations talks about equal rights for all, but people without a nation state are left without a vote. In my book the United Nations is pressured to change from within, to figure out a system that works for everybody and solve the issue of minority representation.

One of the main characters in your book is Naza, a Kurdish lady from Erbil. Many of your descriptions of Erbil and Kurdistan are very accurate. How did you get this information?
Through research and talking to a lot of people. Erbil is one of the few places in the book I actually have not visited. I read about it and tried to put an image together. I wanted people from Kurdistan to recognize what I wrote about their homeland. In my writing process I often asked proof readers if they found ‘Het Verbond van Vijf’ credible enough. They knew it was fiction, but wanted to believe the story happened in the way I described it. That was enough encouragement for me.

You write in your book that it was difficult for a Kurdish Muslim lady like Naza to live in a male-dominated society in Erbil. Is this personality based on a real person?
Most characters in the book are based on people I know. I borrowed certain personality traits or character peculiarities here and there to shape the main cast. Naza as the protagonist in my book is a fictional character as such, but she easily could have existed. I gave her many talents, yet she wears scars of her youth as well. Once upon a lecture, a Kurdish man in the audience told me that Naza sounded exactly like his daughter. Naza’s life is no fairy tale. She lived through a lot of difficulties, within her country and family as well. I wanted to give her a credible background, so readers could identify with her. Her personal history is that of many Kurdish people.

Did you also go to Erbil to learn more about the Kurds? Or are you planning to visit Kurdistan in the future?
As you are aware, the current situation in Iraq is very volatile. If things settle down, I would love to celebrate Newroz in Kurdistan. I look forward to seeing the sun rise over the Erbil citadel as Naza did in her highschool years. I am sure it will happen one day.

You write that Kurds are considered as ground troops of the West, but do not get real support. Why did you write this?
I am an author, not a political activist. My book is a thriller in which the root of the conflict is not West versus East, but those in power versus those without voice. I mentioned the war in Syria in my book to explain how Naza developed as a character. She has a mission in life, based on everything she lived through in her formative years. The other protagonist in the book comes from a worry free neighbourhood in Amsterdam. They are complete opposites and team up to solve a mystery together.

How is the reaction so far from Dutch Kurds or Dutch readers?
When I gave a talk about the book for a local Kurdish community, the crowd recognized an authentic voice of someone who would like to see the world change for the better. Reviews in the main Dutch media have been overwhelmingly positive. Dutch readers have embraced the book as a good read about a relevant topic. By the way, the English translation is still a work in progress.[1]