|
Syria jails Kurdish activists for five
years: rights group
19.4.2010
|
|
|
|
April
19, 2010
DAMASCUS, — A Syrian security court has
jailed four Kurdish opposition activists for five
years each for belonging to a banned political
party, a rights group said on Monday.
Nazami Mohammad, Ahmed Darwish, Dalkash Mamo and
Yasha Kader were convicted in the Supreme State
Security Court on Sunday of "belonging to a banned
political organisation, Yakiti," the London-based
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in a
statement.
The four were arrested in January 2007 at Kader's
house in Aleppo, around 200 miles (320 kilometres)
north of Damascus. |
File photo |
The rights group
denounced "the unconstitutional rulings handed down
by the Supreme State Security Court, created in 1968
on the back of the emergency law, for illegal
political purposes."
The group urged the Syrian government "to free the
four members of the Kurdish opposition group along
with all prisoners of conscience being held in
Syrian jails," and "to pass a modern law regulating
the activities of political parties and civil
society groups in Syria."
The New York-based Human Rights Watch last month
accused the Syrian authorities of systematic efforts
to "ban and disperse" Kurdish gatherings and "the
detention of leading Kurdish political activists and
their ill-treatment in custody."
Living mainly in the north, near the border with
Turkey and Iraq, Syria's Kurds are demanding
recognition of their language, culture and political
rights but deny they are seeking secession.
Kurds represent around nine percent of Syria's
20-million population.
Copyright,
respective author or news agency, AFP
Top |
Kurd Net
does not take credit for and is not responsible for the content of news
information on this page
|
®
