Ezdina Organization held its fourth dialogue session with the partnership of Zemin Organization for Development and Peace, in the city of Qamishlo/Qamishli, as a part of its project "A Constitution That Protects Us", as the session started at 11:00 and ended at 16:00.
Facilitator:
The session was moderated by lawyer, legal advisor and human rights activist Omar Ali, who holds a master degree in non-profit organization management.
Participants:
14 participants from representatives of religious institutions, national components, jurists, and researchers in northeastern Syria participated in the session, according to the following percentages:
36% Female - 64% Male
- Sherin Koussa (member of the Interfaith Forum).
- Samira Hanna (member of the House of the Assyrian Women).
- Norma Shabo (member of the House of Assyrian Women).
- Kamel Akhta (from the Chechen component).
- Rozin Jamil (from the Yazidi component).
- Bakri Jamil (from the Yazidi component).
- Mohammad Al-Qadri (Member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly).
- Radwan Seydo (from the Kurdish component)
- Hanna Somi (Head of the Christian Religion Department at Rojava University).
- Siraj Farhan (from the Kurdish component).
- Mouaz Yousef (from the Kurdish component).
- Sultan Tammo (researcher)
- Najwa Hussein (from the Arab component)
- Farouk Tozo (member of the Yazidi House in Al-Jazira region)
National background of the participants:
Kurds 65% - Syriacs 21% - Arabs 7% - Chechen 7%
Religious background of the participants:
Muslims 58% - Christians 21% - Yazidis 21%
The most important topics of the session:
- Geneva conferences on resolving the Syrian crisis.
- The importance of the political process in Geneva.
- Security Council Resolution 2254.
- The Syrian Constitutional Committee in Geneva (its components - its actions - its activities - its decisions).
- The role of the constitution in protecting minorities.
The facilitator began talking about the nine Geneva conferences and their results in detail, then the member of Ezdina's media office Avin Sheikhmous read the written speech of Mrs. Sinam Mohammad, representative of the Syrian Democratic Council in the United States of America.
In the second part, the session facilitator, Lawyer Omar Ali, talked about the establishment and composition of the Constitutional Committee and the drawbacks to the committee's representation in addition to the main reasons for the failure of the Constitutional Committee in its work so far.
Then the researcher and economic analyst Cheleng Omar participated in the session via the "Zoom", and listed his recommendations and opinions at the Geneva Conference and the Constitutional Committee.
Then Dr. Kamal Seydo, head of the Middle East department of the Organization of Threatened Peoples in Germany, spoke about the importance of federalism and pluralism in constitutions, and listed the German experience to get benefit of it.
The session facilitator divided the attendees into two groups to develop and discuss a set of recommendations and proposals, in order to reach several general proposals that were agreed upon by all the participants.
Session results:
The participants in the dialogue session agreed on a set of recommendations and proposals to present to the Syrian Constitutional Committee, including:
- Involving the Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria in the Constitutional Committee, as well as all the Syrian components of religions and nationalities.
- The representation of civil society is 50 percent.
- The state is secular, federal, and parliamentary.
- Adoption of the name "The Syrian Republic".
- Ensuring the rights of nationalities, religions and sects.
- Inclusion of the national languages of the components in the Syrian curriculum within their areas of spread.
- Emphasizing supra-constitutional principles.
- Abolishing the subject of religious education from the school curriculum.
- Adopting Sharia law for each religion in matters of personal status.
- Adopting a flag that is agreed upon, representing all components.
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