Syria jails Kurdish activists for five years: rights group
AFP
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.
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad shakes hands with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.
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.
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