US condemns arrests of Syrian activists

0 Comments | AFP, August, 2008

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States on Friday denounced Syria's arrest of a Syrian Kurdish activist and other "prisoners of conscience" and called for their immediate release.

"We are concerned over the fate of Syrian Kurdish activist Mashaal Tammo, whose disturbing arrest is the most recent of a string of detentions of civil society activists by the Syrian government," State Department spokesman Robert Wood said in a statement.

Tammo was arrested August 15 and transferred to a detention center in Damascus where he was denied any contact with the outside world for two weeks, Wood said.

He was presented at a preliminary court hearing on August 27 and remains behind bars, the spokesman said.

"We condemn the detention of Tammo and other Syrian...