Students and their families in Kobani and other towns in Syrian Kurdistan held gatherings Sept. 10 to protest the recent decision of the national Education Ministry to allocate only three sessions a week to Kurdish language instruction. Protesters noted that students have been educated in Kurdish from elementary school to university for the past 14 years, since establishment of the recently-disbanded autonomous administration in the region. They emphasized that the right to mother-tongue education is enshrined in UNESCO's 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education. (KurdPress, ANHA)

One day later, angry protests broke out in Kobani over the killing of a former Kurdish fighter of the now-disbanded Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) who had been integrated into the security forces of the Interior Ministy. Reports indicate the fighter, Sipan Hizni, may have been killed in a reprisal attack by a member of a local Arab tribe, al-Baggara. The protests over his slaying spread to Kobani's prison, where a fire broke out and seven inmates were killed. (Al Jazeera, AP, JP)