Far From Justice - Human Rights Watch

“belonging to a secret organization,” “inciting sectarian strife,” and “spreading falseinformation.” Security forces had arrested Drar on June 4, 2005 after he made a speech atthe funeral of prominent Kurdish Islamic scholar Sheikh Muhammad Ma`shuq al-Khaznawi.In his speech, Drar demanded that the government grant Syrian Kurds the same rights asother citizens, particularly in regard to issues of citizenship for stateless Kurds.Commenting on the trial and detention of Riad Drar, the UN Working Group on ArbitraryDetention noted that:[it] takes notice that the Government does not contest that the criminalcharges were pressed against Mr. Al-Darrar because he hosted a publicmeeting, issued a communication and denounced a death in prison. Theseactivities where held without violence and are rights protected under theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant onCivil and Political Rights[…]Furthermore, it is not contested that Mr. Al-Darrar’s detention was conductedwithout a warrant and that he was held in incommunicado detention for 25days, that his lawyers were not permitted to have contact with him and thatthey were not given the pertaining documents of the case, and that he didnot benefit from a fair and impartial trial, as the procedure before the SSSC isdescribed. 158Sentencing of Four Activists Celebrating NowruzOn February 3, 2008, the SSSC convicted four Kurdish activists on the basis of “acts, speech,writings or other means to cut off part of Syrian land to join it to another country.” The fourare Hamid Suleiman Muhammad, Adnan Me`mech, Ibrahim Haj Yousef, and Ahmed HusaynHabash. Two of them, Hamid and Adnan, received ten years in jail while the other two,Ibrahim and Ahmed, received seven years. The four were part of a group that Syrian securityservices arrested in March 2006 for participating in a candle-lit procession in celebration ofthe Kurdish new year, Nowruz. The security forces had used tear gas and batons to break upthe march. 159158 Working Group on Arbitrary Detention Opinion No. 15/2006 (Riyad Hamoud al-Darrar) (adopted on May 12, 2006),http://www.unhcr.org/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/refworld/rwmain/opendocpdf.pdf?docid=470b77b40 (accessed on November 19,2008). There is a lack of information on the exact circumstances of Sheikh al-Khaznawi’s death and it is not certain that hedied in prison.159 Human Rights Watch, World Report 2007, [link not working on new site. Waiting to fix footnote]47 Human Rights Watch February 2009