Syrian court sentences the imprisonment of seven Kurds
Syria, Politics, 6/28/2004

The Syrian higher state security court today issued imprisonment sentences ranging between one and two years against seven years who were detained one year ago during a demonstration in the Syrian capital Damascus. The trial session was attended by foreign diplomats including Americans and others from the European Union in addition to 10 lawyers.

The Syrian Human rights society said that the court held " three Kurds of the Kurdish Children demonstration, Muhammad Mustafa, Muhammad Sharif Ramadan and Khaled Ahmad under the charge of being members in a secret organization and trying to chop part of the Syrian lands to annex it to a foreign territory." The same sentences were also taken against Amer Murad, Salar saleh, Hozan Muhammad Amin, Hussein Ramadan and decided to jail them for one year after alleviating the sentence.

According to the society, the detained persons objected to the bad treatment and torture they said they were exposed to in Adra prison near Damascus.

The society rejected the sentences against the citizens and asked for their release immediately. The human rights activist Anwar al-Bunni said that these imprisonment constitutes a message from the Syrian authorities that " oppression will not stop," demanding the release of all Syrian political detainees, abrogating the emergency law and liberating the press in Syria.

The seven men were detained during their participation in June 2003 in a demonstration before UNICEF office in Damascus.

The demonstrators demanded to get the Syrian nationality, recognition of the cultural rights of the Kurdish people. Regularly the Kurdish parties in Syria call for offering 200,000 Kurds of ID withdrawn from them in 1962.

Previous Stories:
  Kurdish parties in Syria defy banning decision   (6/16/2004)
  Damascus: al- Maleh denies banning activities of unlicensed societies, parties   (6/10/2004)
  Syria bans activities of parties and political and legal societies   (6/8/2004)

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