Amnesty International has called on Syria to release Kurds detained during violent riots last month:
“Hundreds” of Kurds are being held at unknown locations, incommunicado and without charge, Amnesty said.
It called for an independent inquiry into the riots which left 25 dead and injured hundreds in five days.
The unrest was sparked by a soccer match brawl on 12 March, between fans of teams supported by Arabs and Kurds.
It spread quickly from the northern town of Qameshli, near the border with Turkey and Iraq, to other towns. […]
In its statement on Tuesday, Amnesty International said: “The incommunicado detention at unknown locations of many hundreds of Syrian Kurds is of serious concern, not least as it puts detainees at greater risk of torture or ill-treatment.”
If this is correct, fears of torture are well-founded (via Medienkritik):
Syrian security forces tortured to death 13 people last year, most of them Kurds, an independent human rights watchdog claimed yesterday.
The Association for Human Rights in Syria said that some of the alleged victims died in custody after unrest in the mainly Kurdish north-east in March last year.
“Five Kurds died under torture after the demonstrations in Qamishli,” the group reported. “Six more Kurds died in suspicious circumstances while performing their national service and two [Arab] Syrians died in offices of the interior ministry’s security branch.”
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