Syria's Kurdish fault line deepens amid rival protests

Protests in northeast Syria are exposing competing demands over the region's reintegration into the Syrian state, as demonstrations calling for greater government control coincide with a growing Kurdish movement demanding protection for Kurdish-language education.

Hundreds of people took to the streets of Hasakah on Friday under the slogan "Friday for the Restoration of Sovereignty", demanding that Damascus assert full state authority over the ethnically diverse northeastern province.

The demonstration began after Friday prayers at the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Mosque in Hasakah's Ghweiran neighbourhood before proceeding towards the governorate square, according to The New Arab.

A separate protest was held in Ras al-Ain in support of the Hasakah demonstration.

Protesters called for an end to the parallel security and administrative structures that have persisted during efforts to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and institutions associated with the Autonomous Administration into the Syrian state.

The "Free People of Hasakah Gathering", which called for the demonstrations, also demanded that government appointments be based on competence rather than political or regional quotas, and called for fair representation for the province's Arab, Kurdish and Syriac communities.

Journalist Hassan Abdullah al-Khalaf said the Syrian government had waited too long to fully establish its authority in Hasakah.

"Does it make sense for Hasakah to have two municipalities, two emergency-police and traffic-police branches, two armies, two transport departments, two licence plates for the same car and two driving licences?" he told The New Arab.

Yet the demonstrations come amid a separate wave of Kurdish protests over fears that the return of Syrian government institutions could erode linguistic rights established during more than a decade of autonomous administration.

Students and teachers have staged demonstrations and school strikes across Hasakah province against a Syrian Education Ministry decision limiting Kurdish-language teaching to three classes a week.

Schools in Ma'bada and Rmeilan saw student strikes on Thursday, while protests have also taken place in Qamishli and other predominantly Kurdish areas.

Protesters have demanded the right to receive education in their mother tongue and constitutional recognition of Kurdish as an official language.

The Syrian rights groups said the protests had expanded in recent weeks, with students arguing that three weekly classes were insufficient to preserve Kurdish-language education.

The controversy stems from implementing instructions issued by the Education Ministry in August allowing Kurdish to be taught as a "national language" in public and private schools in areas with significant Kurdish populations, with three lessons allocated each week.

Kurdish campaigners argue the measure falls well short of the education system developed in areas governed by the Autonomous Administration, where Kurdish has been used as a language of instruction.

Lawyer Bashira Jamal al-Din said on Sunday that all subjects should be available in Kurdish and called for linguistic rights to be guaranteed in Syria's constitution.

"Three lessons are not enough to teach the mother tongue," she said, according to the Kurdish Hawar News Agency.

The two protest movements highlight the difficult questions surrounding the implementation of agreements reached this year between Damascus and the SDF.

Those agreements envisage the integration of military and civilian institutions in northeast Syria into the Syrian state, and government security forces have already begun deploying in Hasakah as part of the process.

For some residents, however, integration has moved too slowly and left an unwieldy system of competing authorities responsible for security and public services.

For Kurdish protesters, the same process has raised a different concern - whether the restoration of central government authority will come at the expense of political and cultural rights established during the years of autonomous rule.

Political analyst Samer al-Ahmad told The New Arab that the pro-government demonstrations were not directed against the integration agreements themselves, but were intended to pressure the authorities to implement them fully.