Syrian Regime
Jails Four Kurds for Separatism: Watchdog
DAMASCUS, Feb 4, 2008 (AFP) - A Syrian regime has sentenced four Kurds to
prison terms of up to 10 years on charges of seeking to annex parts of the
country to a separate state, a human rights group said on Monday.
"Hamid Suleiman Mohammed and Adnan Muwaymesh were jailed for 10 years and
Ibrahim Haj Yussef and Ahmed Hassan Habash for seven," the National Organization
for Human Rights in Syria said in a statement.
The state security court convicted the four of "seeking through their actions,
plans or writings to break away areas of Syrian territory so that they can be
annexed to an independent state."
The four were arrested in March 2006 after taking part in a demonstration in the
town of Afrin, north of city of Aleppo, on the eve of celebrations for the
Kurdish new year holiday of Nowruz.
They were originally accused of attacking a security force patrol in the town,
which lies in the heavily Kurdish region of Kurd Dagh, the rights group said.
The use of the state security court to try dissidents has drawn repeated
criticism from Syrian human rights groups.
Established under the country's 45-year-old state of emergency, the court's
judgments are final and cannot be appealed.
The Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights called on the authorities to
get rid of the court and "end the problem of political prisoners by releasing
all of them."
