Syria sentences two Kurds of imprisonment, postpones files of 15 others

A Syrian security court sentenced two Kurdish activists for 3 year imprisonment over charges of affiliation to separatist groups.

Lawyer Faisal Bader said that the court alleviated the sentences issues against Farhat Abdul Rahman Ali from the Kurdish Yaktini party and Ibrahim Nasaan of the Democratic Kurdish unity party to three years after they were sentenced to five year imprisonment with Labor, noting that the two men were arrested by the end of 2002 and beginning of 2003.

The lawyer added that the court decided to postponement considering the files of other 15 Kurds detained on the background of the Iraqi acts of violence which overwhelmed northern Syria in March to October 31st. The convicted men face accusations of provoking sectarianism, civil war and the attempt to partition the Syrian territories.

The Syrian authorities say that most of the Kurds who were detained on the background of the acts of violence which claimed the lives of 30 persons were released, but the Kurdish parties say that more than 180 detainees are still held in the government' s jails.

Syria's Kurds whose population tolls 2 million and are linked to kinship relations with the Kurds of Turkey and Iraq demand the right to learn the Kurdish language and giving citizenship to almost 200,000 Kurds, classified by the government according to the survey held in 1962 as without a country. The Kurds defend themselves by saying they are demanding their right in Syria rather than dividing the country.