Sectarian tension in Syria is rising as the majority Sunni Arab country grows alarmed at the fate of the Sunni minority in Iraq, and increasingly sympathetic to such Sunni militant organizations as al-Qaeda, who purport to defend Sunnis and bring retribution to Shia. Iraqi refugees, including Shia, have streamed into Syria, and in June 2006 sectarian rioting erupted in a largely Iraqi Damascus suburb.

There are an estimated 1.5 million Kurds in Syria, although an estimated 300,000 remain stateless following a 1962 decision that stripped many Kurds and their descendants of their citizenship, and the presence of many more without official papers. Police violently prevented an October 2006 rally in Damascus in support of these stateless Kurds, who are barred from property ownership, admission to university and public sector employment. Amnesty International raised alarm over the arrest in November 2006 of a Syrian Kurdish activist who had been demanding an investigation into the May 2005 torture and murder of his father – allegedly by Syrian Military Intelligence officers.

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