My daughter Vian, aged twenty-two went to renew her passport at the Immigration and Naturalisation Service in Hassaka province. She was told that she needed the consent of the Palestine Branch of Military Security to renew her passport, and to travel outside Syria.
Vian went to the Palestine Branch on 27 April 2010 and was subjected to a two-day investigation. She objected to the psychological pressure that this process put her under. She was told that the attitude and behaviour of her father, Abdul Hakim Basher, will have a harmful effect on her and her family. They gave the example that when she qualifies from her course she will be prevented from finding work, and was informed that the ripples of harm arising from her father’s behaviour will spread and become wider.
She was told by the investigators that they could silence her father, but the circumstances do not allow for this, and they did not intend to make him a national hero.
I am explaining for human rights organizations the reality of what has happened, and the seriousness of the threats that my family and I are exposed to.
Abdul Hakim Bashar, Secretary of the Kurdish Democratic Party al-Party
2 May 2010
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