V. Other Forms of Harassment

The harassment of Kurdish activists does not end with their release. Eighteen of the 30 Kurdish former detainees interviewed by Human Rights Watch told us that security services continued to call them in for interrogation even after their release. In the words of one, “the security services call me in all the time. They usually threaten me with a new arrest if I continue my activities. They insult me, pressure me psychologically.”[172] Another detainee reported that there have been periods when they called him in for questioning on a weekly basis.[173]

Security services also have banned at least 15 of the activists interviewed by Human Rights Watch from leaving the country. The number may be higher as a number of activists had not inquired about or tested whether the security services had placed a travel ban on them.

In addition, security services have exerted pressure on the livelihood of activists who are state employees, by arranging for them to be suspended, fired, or transferred to less attractive positions. Human Rights Watch documented three such cases. The governor of al-Hasakeh suspended an activist who worked for the Ministry of Finance in Qamishli in March 2009, on the same day that security services detained him.[174] Security services have also allegedly banned Adnan Buzan, a KDP-S leader who worked as a primary school teacher, from working in the public sector.[175] Security services reportedly arranged in June 2008 for the transfer of Anwar Naso, a leader of the Yekiti party, from his job in `Amuda to another Agricultural Institute (Maslahat al-Zira`at) 150 km away from his home. According to a relative of Naso, the transfer occurred when Naso intervened before the then-deputy prime minister, Abdullah Dardari, to argue that committees overseeing development projects in `Amuda must be elected from the people and not be Ba`athist appointees.[176] According to Kurdish human rights groups, security services regularly arrange for Kurdish activists to be relocated to faraway posts as a way of punishing them: between October 2008 and January 2009, these Kurdish groups documented the transfer of seven Kurdish teachers known for their activism to faraway regions.[177]

Pressure has not been limited to the activists but has also extended to their families. Two activists told Human Rights Watch that their wives, who were teachers in the public school system, were fired from their jobs as a result of the husbands’ activism.[178] “My wife was removed from the institute for teachers on the accusation that she is a threat to national security,” one of them told us. [179] The wife of another activist in detention, a teacher, told us that a week after the arrest of her husband, and while she was six months pregnant, the school authorities transferred her from her hometown in `Amuda to a school in Derbassiye, two hours away from her home:

I had to leave at six a.m. in the morning and take my child with me in the heat. I would come back late in the afternoon. You cannot imagine my situation. Political Security and Military Intelligence are always keeping an eye on me. They are waiting to see if I make any mistake, and they observe my movements as if I was very dangerous. My home phone and my cell phone are also under surveillance.[180]

Fuad `Aliko, the general secretary of Yekiti, told us that security services fired his son Bahzad, a mechanical engineer who used to work in the oil fields, in 2005 and that his other son “was denied work in 2007 by the government, even though many of his friends were hired.”[181]