Syriac Union Party in Syria ( syr, ܓܒܐ ܕܚܘܝܕܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, translit=Gabo d'Ḥuyodo Suryoyo, ar, حزب الإتحاد السرياني في سوريا, SUP) is a secular Assyrian/Syriac political party in

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

that represents the interests of

Assyrians in Syria Assyrians in Syria ( syr, ܐܬܘܪܝܐ ܕܣܘܪܝܐ, ar, الآشوريون في سوريا) are an ethnic and linguistic minority that are indigenous to Upper Mesopotamia (known in Syriac as ''Gozarto'') which is the name used for the uplands ...

and is committed to the '' Dawronoye'' modernization ideology. Established on 1 October 2005, since the start of the Syrian Civil War it has positioned itself on the side of secular, democratic, socialist and federalist Kurdish forces in

Rojava The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, ...

, skeptical of both the

Ba'athist Ba'athism, also stylized as Baathism, (; ar, البعثية ' , from ' , meaning "renaissance" or "resurrection"Hans Wehr''Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic'' (4th ed.), page 80) is an Arab nationalist ideology which promotes the creation a ...

Syrian government of

Bashar al-Assad Bashar Hafez al-Assad, ', Levantine pronunciation: ; (, born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician who is the 19th president of Syria, since 17 July 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the ...

and the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces.

Political role in Jazira Canton of Rojava

With the start of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, the Syriac Union Party aligned itself with the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), with which it shares a

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin ''saeculum'', "worldly" or "of a generation"), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. Anything that does not have an explicit reference to religion, either negativ ...

, pro-modernization and

direct democracy Direct democracy or pure democracy is a form of democracy in which the electorate decides on policy initiatives without elected representatives as proxies. This differs from the majority of currently established democracies, which are repres ...

based ideology. It has three deputies in the

Syrian Democratic Council The Syrian Democratic Council ( ku, Meclîsa Sûriya Demokratîk, MSD; ar, مجلس سوريا الديمقراطية; syc, ܡܘܬܒܐ ܕܣܘܪܝܐ ܕܝܡܩܪܛܝܬܐ, translit=Mawtbo d'Suriya Demoqraṭoyto) is the political wing of the Syri ...

, the legislature of the

Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Afrin, Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, ...

. The Syriac Union Party has set up the

Syriac Military Council The Syriac Military Council ( syr, ܡܘܬܒܐ ܦܘܠܚܝܐ ܣܘܪܝܝܐ, translit=Mawtbo Fulḥoyo Suryoyo, MFS; ar, المجلس العسكري السرياني السوري) is an Assyrian/Syriac military organisation in Syria, part of the Sy ...

militia as well as the Sutoro police force to protect Assyrian communities in their settlement areas in northeast Syria. Sutoro are integrated with the general Asayish police force of

Jazira Region The Jazira Region, formerly Jazira Canton, ( ku, Herêma Cizîrê, ar, إقليم الجزيرة, syr, ܦܢܝܬܐ ܕܓܙܪܬܐ, Ponyotho d'Gozarto), is the largest of the three original regions of the de facto Autonomous Administration of Nor ...

of the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria, however the Qamishli branch later broke away to align itself with the Assad government under the name of Sootoro. The

has co-operated closely with the mainly Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG) and later became part of the

Syrian Democratic Forces , war = the Syrian Civil War , image = Flag of Syrian Democratic Forces.svgborder , caption = Flag , active = 10 October 2015 – present , ideology = DemocracyDecentralizationSecularism ...

(SDF).

Persecution by the Assad government

The Syriac Union Party has been subject to continued repression by the Assad government during the civil war, despite being part of the nonviolent and officially-tolerated domestic opposition National Coordination Body. On 6 June 2013, government forces raided the Qamishli home of SUP Executive Committee member Rubel Gabriel Bahho, arresting and subsequently imprisoning him. On 12 August 2013, security forces apprehended SUP vice-president Sait Malki Cosar—the father of Sutoro leader Johann Cosar—as he disembarked at

Qamishli Airport Qamishli Airport ( ar, مطار القامشلي) is an airport serving Qamishli, a city in northeastern Syria. History Although the airport was closed to civilians around October 2015, it has been reopened again, and Syrian flight companies i ...

following a visit to

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

, where he holds dual citizenship. After being detained in Qamishli for several days, Cosar was transferred to a prison near

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

and contact with him was lost. Neither party official is known to have been formally charged or tried in court, and neither has been released or heard from since their imprisonment. Their fates remain unknown as of February 2014. Cosar is rumoured to have died under shadowy circumstances while in custody. The government produced a

death certificate A death certificate is either a legal document issued by a medical practitioner which states when a person died, or a document issued by a government civil registration office, that declares the date, location and cause of a person's death, as ...

for Cosar that stated he died in Damascus of supposed "cardiac arrest" at either 10:00 or 10:25 PM on the day of his arrest, even though his flight did not even land in Qamishli until 10:30 PM. But despite requests from both the SUP and Cosar's family, government officials have refused to release his body. Cosar's relatives reportedly managed to track down the doctors in Damascus who signed the death certificate, who told them that the government frequently forces doctors to sign death certificates for detainees without allowing them to even see a corpse. Friends, family members, and party colleagues alike believe that Cosar may still be alive, and have alleged that the government is trying to conceal the fact that he has been tortured in custody.

Activities in Europe

On 15 August 2012, members of Syriac Union Party stormed the Syrian embassy in

Stockholm Stockholm () is the capital and largest city of Sweden as well as the largest urban area in Scandinavia. Approximately 980,000 people live in the municipality, with 1.6 million in the urban area, and 2.4 million in the metropo ...

in protest of the Syrian government. A dozen of its members were later detained by Swedish police.

References

External links

''Carl Drott:'' "The Revolutionaries of Bethnahrin", ''Warscapes'', 25 May 2015Interview with the Chairman of the Syriac National Council (in German)
{{Assyrian political parties 2005 establishments in Syria Anti-government factions of the Syrian civil war Assyrian political parties Assyrians in Syria Dawronoye Organizations of the Syrian civil war Political parties established in 2005 Political parties in Syria Political parties in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria Political parties of minorities in Syria Social democratic parties in Asia

Political role in Jazira Canton of Rojava

Persecution by the Assad government

Activities in Europe

See also

References

External links