Compiled by Daily Star staff
Monday, 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.

A security court also sentence a 17-year-old accused of ties to a banned Islamist group in Syria to six years in prison.

Massaab Hariri was initially sentenced to death for allegedly belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, "but the court commuted the death sentence to a prison term instead," said Bunni.

Hariri was arrested on his arrival in Syria from Saudi Arabia and has been in prison for the past three years.

His mother was also arrested but was released some months later. Her son's case was transferred to the security court, which operates under emergency laws in place since the ruling Baath Party took power in 1963.

Hariri's father is also wanted by police for belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood, Bunni said.

Kurds and Islamists form the main opposition groups in Syria, but they are prohibited from assembling because the Syrian government views them as a threat to national security.

There are about 1.5 million Kurds in Syria, a nation of 18.5 million, including about 160,000 who are denied Syrian citizenship. They often complain of harassment and persecution by security authorities.

Agencies