PUBLIC AI Index: MDE 24/006/2007

25 January 2007

Further Information on UA 09/07 (MDE 24/004/2007, 5 January 2007) and follow-up (MDE 24/005/2007, 18 January 2007) - Fear of torture and other ill-treatment/incommunicado detention/forcible return/medical concern

SYRIA Yassin Suleiman (m), Kurd, aged 35

Akash Suleiman (m), his father, aged over 60

Yassin and Akash Suleiman were released on 24 January, apparently without charge.

Yassin Suleiman was apparently tortured during the first two weeks he was held by Syrian State Security in Damascus. His father was also apparently tortured. Both men were held incommunicado until 22 January, when they were permitted to see their family at the prison they had been moved to, in Qamishli, in the north-east of the country.

Both men had been arrested on 21 December 2006, a few weeks after Yassin Suleiman and his wife and daughter were forcibly returned to Damascus by the Norwegian authorities, who had rejected their application for asylum. Yassin and Akash Suleiman were apparently detained in connection with Yassin’s connections with the unauthorized Kurdish Democratic Progressive Party

Norway is a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees which states that no one should be "… expelled or returned … in anymanner whatsoever to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular group or political opinion." According to Amnesty International’s research, torture and ill-treatment is routinely inflicted on Syrian Kurdish political prisoners, while they are held incommunicado in Syrian prisons and detention centres.

No further action is requested from the UA network. Amnesty International will continue to monitor the situation of Yassin and Akash Suleiman, and take further campaigning action as necessary.********