Kurdish correspondent of the GfbV sentenced to a prison term of three and a half years Punishment for engagement for human rights "exposes Arab nationalism in Syria”

The sentencing of the Kurdish correspondent of the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV), Mashal Tamo, to three and a half years in prison is exposing in the opinion of the human rights organisation "Arab racial nationalism” of the Syrian government. "It is not only that Syria is a state governed by a dictator, but President Bashar al-Assad allows the people of the second largest nationality of his country, the two million Kurds, to be marginalized and at best treated as second-class citizens”, criticised the GfbV chairperson, Tilman Zülch, on Tuesday in Göttingen.

Tamo, who regularly reported on the situation of the Kurds in Syria, was originally sentenced by the first penal court in Damascus chaired by Judge Muhyaldin Halaq to six years imprisonment for his engagement for human rights. The sentence, which according to § 285 und § 286 of the Syrian penal code on the charge of impugning national sentiment and the dissemination of falsified information to weaken the spirit of the nation, was however reduced to three and a half years imprisonment. The lawyers of the father of six announced that they would appeal against the sentence.

Mashal Tamo is the spokesperson of the Kurdish liberation movement. He was abducted during the night of 14th to 15th August 2008 in the town of Ain al-Arab in the north of Syria by a patrol of the secret service. His relatives were for several weeks refused any information as to his whereabouts. It was only when the GfbV wrote to the embassies of the democratic states in Damascus with the plea for help that the Syrian authorities stated where Mashal Tamo was being held. Shortly afterwards he was brought to court.

The total number of political prisoners in Syria is estimated at about 3000, among them at least 150 Kurds. The GfbV knows the names of 118 of these Kurdish prisoners. The Syrian Kurds, numbering some two million, who in three regions on the Syrian-Turkish border make up the majority of the population, are still today being discriminated or suppressed. They are denied rights of language and culture. In 1962 Syrian citizenship was withdrawn from 300,000 Kurds in the course of a large-scale Arabicization campaign. Since this time international human rights organisations, among them the GfbV, have been demanding the restoration of their citizenship.

For further information you can also reach Tilman Zülch at tel. ++49 (0)151

153 09 888.