Syria arrests dissidents on anniversary of Kurdish-Arab clashes
Syrian Security forces arrested a former opposition MP, Riad Seif, and several Kurdish demonstrators who were marking the second anniversary of fatal clashes in northern Syria, a report in Damascus said
Seif was detained along with at least five members of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party during a sit-in near a Damascus government building, said a statement by the Syrian Organization for Human Rights.
Security forces beat and then detained some of the demonstrators, after three of those taking part in the sit-in attempted to deliver a message to Prime Minister Naji Otri, according to human rights lawyer Anwar Bunni Sunday, adding that several demonstrators had been wounded.
Bloody clashes, initially sparked by a riot between rival fans at a football match, pitted mainly Kurdish protestors against security forces and Arab tribesmen in the northern Syrian towns of Qameshli and Aleppo in March 2004.
Forty people were killed during several days of violence according to Kurdish sources, though Syrian authorities said 25 people had died.
Seif, (54 year old) was briefly arrested again in February after he jailed over attempts to change "the Syrtian constitution through illegal mean." He was released in January this year after nearly five years in prison for participating in a short-lived "Damascus spring" of liberalization in 2001.
