KurdistanObserver.com

Kurdish Parties Say Syria Arrested 60 During Protests

Compiled by Daily Star staff
June 20, 2005

Syrian Authorities have arrested 60 Kurds during a demonstration in northern Syria protesting the death of a prominent Kurdish cleric, and some of the detainees were tortured, two Kurdish parties claimed. The protest was held June 5 in the mainly Kurdish city of Qamishli, four days after the body of Kurdish Islamic scholar Mohammad Mashouk al-Khaznawi was found in a hospital morgue.

The demonstrators denounced the death and protested what they call the government's persecution of Syria's Kurds, the Yekiti Kurdish Party and the Azadi Kurdish Party said in a statement.

The two parties listed the names of 60 people detained, saying they included "university students who were brutally beaten and tortured."

There was no immediate response from the government, which rarely comments on such cases.

The detainees are being held on charges of "fomenting riots and sectarian rifts" at prisons in Qamishli and the nearby town of Hasaka, the two Kurdish parties said, warning that the arrests would escalate political tensions.

Meanwhile, a state security court sentenced three Kurds to prison terms, according to human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni. Ismail Osso received a two-year sentence and Khalil Youssef and Fouad Hanif each received one-and-a-half years for belonging to a banned Kurdish party, Bunni said.