Syria frees political prisoners held since 1980s

[Truth Seeker]

Human rights lawyer says total of 257 political prisoners will be freed in stages under presidential amnesty.

 

DAMASCUS - Syria has freed a group of political prisoners held for years, including three former air force officers condemned in the 1980s for an attempted coup, a human rights lawyer said on Tuesday.

 

One of the longest-serving political prisoners, Imad Shiha, a member of the Arab Communist organisation, should also be freed soon after being held for nearly 30 years, Anwar Bunni said.

 

The human rights lawyer said a total of 257 political prisoners will be freed in stages, in a process that started last Saturday under a presidential amnesty.

 

Among them are about 100 Kurds who were arrested after clashes with security forces in northeast Syria in March in which Kurdish leaders said some 40 people were killed. An official toll put the number of dead at 25.

 

The trouble broke out at a football match in Qamishli, 600 kilometres (375 miles) north of Damascus, when Arab tribesmen taunted Kurds with slogans against Iraqi Kurdish leaders and brandished portraits of deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

 

Syria's Kurdish population is estimated to total 1.5 million, and most live in the north near the Iraqi border.

 

Bunni said that besides the former air force officers - Mohammed Rafiq Hammami, Bashar Ashi and Mahmud Kiki - "dozens of political detainees have been released" since Saturday, particularly those affiliated, or close, to the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Hizb al-Tahrir (Freedom Party), both of which are banned.

 

Human rights groups have persistently called for the release of political prisoners and the abolition of Syria's emergency law, in

place since 1963.