Students and their families in Kobani [7] 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 [8] in the region. They emphasized that the right to mother-tongue education is enshrined in UNESCO's 1960 Convention against Discrimination in Education [9]. (KurdPress [10], ANHA [11])
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 [8]) 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 [12], AP [13], JP [14])
