A new victim of the mysterious killings in the Syrian army
According to Kurdish Organization for Defending Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria – DAD and the Media Institute of Western Kurdistan Society, the family of a military conscript, Shiar Osman Osman, born 1991 in Deyrik, were told on the morning of Sunday, 22 August 2010 about the death of their son, who was serving in one of the military units at Khan al-Sheikh, Damascus. He had not been doing his military service any more than eight months, and was sent to this new unit just three days before he died. His body was expected to arrive the same evening to be buried in Deyrik.
The responsible authorities informed Shiar’s family that he had committed suicide. We have learned from informed sources that the conscript was shot in the abdomen.
A Kurdish-Israeli alliance vis-à-vis the Arab-Turkish alliance?
The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan made a speech a month ago, in the city of Konya, central Anatolia. Directing his comments to the Israeli government, he said that the Sixth Commandment in the Torah regarding murder says, ‘Thou shalt not kill’, and he repeated these words in Turkish, English and Hebrew. The following day, the leader of the opposition Republican People’s Party gave a response in relation to internal affairs, saying that the Eighth commandment of the Torah states, “Do not lie”.
These commandments are first and foremost of relevance to everyone connected to the Turkish government, the opposition, and in the context of the recent history of contemporary Turkey. Turkish history is littered with massacres and the version that the Turkish Government relies on is false (like other countries in the region), because it fails to disclose important information, in particular in relation to Kurds and Armenians. Read more
KHRP and Amnesty International have grave concerns about Iran’s impending executions of Kurdish Political Prisoners
Amnesty International has made a new call to the Iranian authorities to immediately halt all executions and commute all death sentences as concern grows about two women and other prisoners who may be at imminent risk of execution. The organization is also urging the authorities to review and repeal death penalty laws, to disclose full details of all death sentences and executions, and to join the growing international trend towards abolition.
Two women are feared to be at imminent risk of execution. Zeynab Jalalian, a political activist and member of the Kurdish minority , was sentenced to death in early 2009 after being convicted of “enmity against God”, while Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, whose conviction of “adultery while being married” was upheld in May 2007, could be executed by stoning at any time.
Prisoners on death row are often not informed when they are due to be executed until the last minute, adding to their suffering and that of their families. Sometimes their lawyers are not informed 48 hours in advance, as is required by Iranian law. Read more
KHRP Alarmed to Hear Reports of Village Destruction in Ilisu Region
KHRP is alarmed to hear reports from its local partners that two villages in the Hasankeyf district, the site of the controversial Ilisu Dam project, were yesterday set alight by the Turkish army.
Both the villages of Keçeli (Bizinka) and Palamutlu (Xerbekar) –- villages previously destroyed by the Turkish military in the 1990’s and which stand to be flooded by the Il?su Dam reservoir if construction of the hydro-electric dam goes ahead — were burned. Pictures taken from the north side of the Tigris River show the devastation caused to the villages which although no longer continuously inhabited, are sources of livelihood for local farmers and herders. Read more
Three Kurdish detainees released in Syria
Syrian Human Rights Committee – MAD reports that the Syrian authorities have released three political detainees, who have been imprisoned since 17 January 2010:
Sheikh Ahmed Hamou
Mohammed Sheikh Mohammed
Ez al-Din Sheikhi Mustafa
Their release is welcomed. MAD calls for the release of all political prisoners, and the abolition of trials under the State of Emergency.
Syrian Human Rights Committee – MAD, al-Raqqa
22 June 2010
Original report: http://supportkurds.org/news/three-kurds-arrested-in-syria/
Kurdish women in detention in Syria
June 23, 2010 by sks
Filed under News, Support Kurds, Syria
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The fascist attitude of the Syrian Government towards Kurds has not stopped since the shootings during Newroz at al-Raqqa in March 2010. There are raids in people’s homes in the early hours of the morning that sow the seeds of fear and terror, and the campaign of arbitrary arrests without explanation has been intensified.
Kurdish women did not escape. They are feeling the psychological stress of these practices by intelligence security forces, which fly in the face of human rights. Many women were arrested before these events at al-Raqqa, and they remain in prison with an unknown fate. Read more
Mahmoud Safo, member of Kurdish Left Party, Syria sentenced to one year
According to Kurdish Organization for Defending Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria – DAD, Mahmoud Safo who was arrested on 28 March 2010 was sentenced on 20 June 2010 by an individual military judge in Qamishli to one year imprisonment, for inciting racial and sectarian hatred, and for being a leader of a secret unlicensed association. He is a member of the Political Bureau of the Kurdish Left Party.
Kurdish Organization for Defending Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria – DAD continues to call for an end to arbitrary detention, and the release of all political prisoners and prisoners of opinion. We want to see democratic freedom and the abolition of the state of emergency and martial law, and respect for international conventions and covenants on human rights, so that the Syrian citizen can live in peace, freedom and tranquility.
Kurdish Organization for Defending Human Rights and Public Freedoms in Syria – DAD, 21 June 2010
Previous report: http://supportkurds.org/news/kurdish-political-activist-mahmoud-safo-has-been-arrested
Kurds under pressure from increase in arrests in Kobani, Syria
The fate of the Kurdish citizen Mustafa Mohammad Ali Khalaf, born 1968 in Kobani has been unknown since his arrest on 3 May 2010 by the Political Security branch in Kobani, during a raid on his house in the middle of the night. The security patrol searched his home and interfered with his personal property, and then took him to an unknown destination.
Mustafa is married and has seven children, and he is the sole breadwinner for his family.
In a related development Subhy Osman Berkul, born in 1965 in Kobani was arrested by Political security branch on 14 February 2010. He was arrested while returning from work at night to his home. No-one has been able to communicate with him since his arrest, and there is no information about the reason for arrest, nor of his whereabouts.
There has been a noticeable increase in the arrests of Kurds in the Kobani area
Media Institute of West Kurdistan Society – Kobani
17 June 2010
Kurds in Cyprus face deportation to Syria
The 27-day protest and hunger strike by the Kurdish community in Cyprus ended abruptly Friday morning as Cypriot police and security officers raided their makeshift camp, arriving in armoured military vehicles. The protestors were arrested, put into buses and transferred to detention centres.
250 Kurdish asylum seekers from Syria, including 65 children, had been living in bright orange and green tents pitched outside the Interior Ministry in Nicosia, the Cypriot capital, for almost four weeks to try and obtain refugee rights and bring attention to the condition of Kurds in Syria. Read more
Spanish campaign raises awareness of Kurdish political prisoners in Syria
In late January of this year a letter addressed to the President of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, was registered at the Moncloa Palace, the official seat of the Ministry of the Presidency. The letter outlined the plight of Kurdish political prisoners in Syria and asked for Spain’s assistance.
…we respectfully request your intervention with the Syrian government, with whom the Spanish government has excellent political relations, to recognise the state in which political prisoners in Syrian jails find themselves, and to request the release of all prisoners of conscience, seeking especially to investigate reports of torture and ill-treatment and, in its relations with the Syrian authorities, demand that international norms are respected in the treatment of prisoners. Read more
