Hinweis zum Sprachgebrauch in älteren Beiträgen
Der folgende ältere Beitrag kann Sprache und Formulierungen enthalten, die heute nicht mehr den Ansprüchen einer diskriminierungsfreien und sensiblen Ausdrucksweise entsprechen. Er wurde im historischen Kontext verfasst und bewusst unverändert gelassen, um unsere jahrzehntelange Menschenrechtsarbeit zu dokumentieren.
The 19-year old recruit Mohammed Othman was tortured to death last week during his military service. As a reliable informant reported on Wednesday in Göttingen to the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) the young man complained to his father shortly before his death on 28th March that he and other Kurdish recruits were regularly beaten by other soldiers and superiors. They often poured cold water over him and then forced him to remain in front of the house naked and during very cold weather. When he got ill a doctor refused to treat him. Initially the military refused to hand over his body to his relatives, but the dead man was then brought by military vehicles to his home town during the night of 29.03.2006. Although the military directed that he should be buried immediately it was possible for his relatives to take photographs of the body. These show clear signs of mishandling. Mohammed Othman had only been called up to the army just over a month before. Disturbing news also reached the GfbV from the second largest city of Aleppo. There eye-witnesses say that during the Kurdish New Year’s celebrations on 20th March more than 100 Kurds were arrested. The GfbV has the names of 73 persons arrested. On this evening some 5,000 Kurds followed the call of all Kurdish parties and organisations of the country in Aleppo and wanted to light candles in memory of those Kurds who have been arrested and killed in Syria. During their peaceful meeting songs were sung for New Year and Kurdish flags waved. At this point already the first arrests were made. Then security forces broke up the meeting with tear-gas. When the demonstrators began to throw stones at the security forces these fired into the crowd. There is however no information on the number of those injured. According to Kurdish estimates there were up to a million candles burnt throughout the country. With some two million people the Kurds make up about twelve percent of the population of Syria. Rights of language and culture are kept from them. Citizenship was withdrawn from some 200,000 Kurds in the train of Arabianisation and, in spite of assurances of the Syrian dictator Bashar al Assad, these have not been restored.
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