On April 8, International Roma Day, the Syrian Future Movement affirms that the true measure of any national project’s progress lies in its ability to ensure justice for its most vulnerable groups.
Furthermore, we view the Syrian Dom community not as a marginalized minority, but as an integral part of Syrian society that has suffered forced displacement within its own homeland.
The Syrian Future Movement recognizes and explicitly criticizes the negative connotations of terms used in the Syrian dialect, such as “Qurbat” and “Nawar,” which have, over time, transformed from ethnic descriptors into tools of bullying and social stigma used to denigrate and degrade.
The Syrian Future Movement rejects this discriminatory legacy and calls on Syrians to replace these terms with “Dom,” which restores the community’s status as a cultural group with protected rights.
Based on international human rights reports (such as those from the ERRC and Minority Rights Group), the Syrian Future Movement asserts that the Dom in Syria have faced, and continue to face, compounded deprivation. Illiteracy and poverty rates among them have reached record levels as a result of systematic marginalization. The war also led to the displacement of their major communities in Hajar al-Aswad, Aleppo, Hama, and the Idlib countryside, leaving them in displacement camps without any legal or social safety net.
The Syrian Future Movement emphasizes that the plight of unregistered Syrians is a human rights violation that has persisted for decades.
Depriving thousands of Syrians of their identity documents based on their lifestyle or origins is a violation of the very essence of the concept of the state.
In our vision for the transitional phase, we prioritize comprehensive legal reform of the unregistered population to ensure that no Syrian is outside the law or without identity.
We in the Syrian Future Movement demand the following from the active forces on the ground and the international community:
- Immediate legal recognition: Launching a national campaign to register unregistered Syrians and guarantee their right to full citizenship.
- Social protection: Providing safe access for their children to educational and health institutions in displacement areas without discrimination.
- Community awareness: Integrating the values of diversity and acceptance of others into the new Syrian educational curricula to break down negative stereotypes.
The Syrian Future Movement believes that the Syria we aspire to is a state of “equal citizenship” where no Syrian is superior to another except through their adherence to the national pact.
We see the redress of grievances as a fundamental step towards repairing the wounded Syrian identity and building a future that embraces everyone under the rule of law and dignity.
