DAMASCUS, 25 May 2004 — Syrian authorities released 27 Kurdish youths, ages 13 to 17, who were among hundreds of people arrested during ethnic clashes in northern Syrian cities in March, a human rights activists said.
Anwar Al-Buni, a lawyer of the Human Rights Association of Syria, said their release was ordered by Juvenile Court, to which they had been referred after their arrest. Adult detainees were referred to State Security Court which tries political cases.
“The juvenile court judge in Damascus asked the parents to come and collect their children who were arrested on March 14,” Aziz Dawd, secretary-general of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party, told AFP. The Kurds, whose ages were not given, had been accused “of provoking trouble and attacking the image of the state, insulting the head of state, harming national sentiment, damaging state property and breaking car windows.”
Nearly 2,000 Kurds were rounded up during the March clashes between Kurdish rioters and Syrian security forces that left 25 people dead and more than 100 injured. Many of the detainees since have been released. The clashes erupted following a brawl at a soccer match in the northeastern city of Qamishli and later extended to Hasakah, capital of the northern Hasakah province.
Anwar said the charges against the youths had included damaging public property, fomenting riot, harming national sentiments, confronting policemen and directing insults and abuse at Syrian authorities.
He called their release “a positive move” and urged authorities to transfer other detainees to ordinary courts, instead of the State Security Court, and to stop all kinds of political detentions. Decisions of the State Security Court, set up in line with Syria’s 1963 emergency law, cannot be appealed and the cases often are heard by military personnel rather than civilian judges.
