Arbitrary
Detention & Torture
Some Kurds have been subjected to arbitrary detention and torture as a consequence
of their efforts to rally
for the political and legal
recognition of stateless Kurds in Syria. In July 2005, following the children’s
demonstration for the rights
of stateless Kurdish
children in Syria in front of UNI CEF, eight accompanying adults were detained. One former detainee explained how he was tortured and kept in solitary
confinement for fourteen
months. Another said his captors put shoes in his mouth and on his head. They tortured him with electric shock
and by using “the chicken,”
a technique that involves
stretching the persons out along a long rod, binding the hands and feet at either end, and then rotating them.
In 1992 M. Jamil, an
Ajnabi lawyer interviewed by
Refugees International, was
arrested for his alleged involvement in a campaign to return nationality to the
families of stateless Kurds
who were deprived of it in
1962. Ajanib and nationals alike participated in the protest by posting banners and
signs demanding the
stateless Kurds be given their
rights and nationality in Syria, and more than 300 people were arrested, many of whom were sentenced to up to three
years in prison. Mr. Jamil
was detained without charge and tortured by a gang of five
men almost to the point of
death in order to force a
confession from him. He was verbally abused, beaten and punched, brutally
kicked in his back, raped
with a bottle, forced into a
tire, electrocuted multiple times with wires attached to his genitals and toes,
starved, and psychologically
tortured. He suffered
unconsciousness and severe injuries to his spinal column and eye as a result. He
was tortured along with six
other accused people, three
of whom were Ajanib; one man was nearly 60 years old and bled from the
rapes for nearly five days.
Mr. Jamil was kept for 21
days in a 70 inch by 66.3 inch room, sometimes in solitary confinement and
other times with another
person.
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