BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Syria has arrested dozens of Kurds in nightime raids of homes in the country's northeast, Kurdish officials said Wednesday. The arrests followed clashes between Syrian security forces and Kurdish rioters last month that killed 25 and wounded more than 100. Hundreds of Kurds were arrested following that unrest.
| Rat: "s-s-s-ay, the cat does look a little busy at the moment ..." |
"Syrian authorities have not stopped their nighttime raids, arrests, and oppression of safe Kurds in their homes, continuing the policy of persecution against the Kurdish people," Abdel Baki Youssef, leader of the Kurdish Yekiti Party, said in a statement that was faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut.
Syrian officials could not be reached for comment.
| "We will say no more! Actually, we didn't say anything in the first place." |
Youssef said the arrests included four Kurdish schoolchildren, aged 12 and 13, taken from their school in Qamishli, 450 miles northeast of Damascus. He said they were sent to a prison in Hasakah, 50 miles southwest of Qamishli.
| Yasss, the 'Young Kurdish Subversive League'. |
Youssef claimed another Kurd, 26-year-old Hussein Hamak Nasso, died overnight Wednesday after being tortured in prison in the northern town of Afreen. He said Syrian security forces prevented Nasso's family from holding a funeral and forced them to bury him secretly in their presence.
| They let the family live? Man, the Syrians must be getting soft. |
Up to 40 people may have been arrested in Hasakah province in the past two days, Abdel Hamid Darwish, the leader of the Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party in Syria, said from Qamishli.
On Tuesday, human rights watchdog Amnesty International urged Syria to begin an independent judicial inquiry into last month's clashes, to end repressive measures against its Kurdish minority, and release "hundreds" of Kurds held without charges.
| That's tellin' 'em! Hit 'em with a press release! |
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