Syria tortures, deports Palestinian writer Jordan

AMMAN: Prominent Palestinian writer Salameh Kaileh said yesterday the Syrian authorities deported him this week to Jordan after three weeks of detention and torture over his anti-regime writings.
“Syrian intelligence raided my house and arrested me on April 23. I was suddenly deported to Jordan on Monday after a three-week detention and torture,” Kaileh told AFP in Amman.
“They gave me no reason for their decision, but I know it was because I have written articles against the regime and about the revolt” that broke out 15 months ago against the regime of President Bashar Assad.
Kaileh, 57, who holds a Jordanian passport, said he was hospitalised in Amman for bruises sustained during his detention.
“I was severely beaten on a daily basis. I passed out several times but this did not stop them from beating me more and more. I was prevented from using the toilet,” he said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights yesterday distributed several photographs showing large bruises and burn marks on Kaileh’s arms and legs.
He was imprisoned by the Syrian government in the 1990s for eight years.
According to the Observatory, more than 12,000 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the uprising began on March 15, 2011, and that around 25,000 are in detention.
Human rights organisations have denounced the “systematic torture” of detainees in Syria.
Amnesty International has said in a report based on the testimony of refugees now living in Jordan that “the extent of torture and abuse in Syria has reached a level not seen in years, and which evokes the dark era of the 1970s and 1980s.”
According to the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), 15,999 Syrian refugees are registered in Jordan, but Amman says more than 100,000 Syrians have sought refuge in the kingdom since last year.
Meanwhile, Syrian forces sent shells crashing into rebel stronghold Rastan yesterday, a watchdog said. Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 30 shells smashed into Rastan in a 10-minute period after midnight, and urged UN observers monitoring a shaky truce to immediately rush to the town in central Homs province.
“The army is trying to gradually destroy Rastan,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.
There were no immediate reports on casualties.
Rastan has for months been the focus of an offensive by the regime as it attempts to regain control of the town, defended by the largest concentration of rebel soldiers in the country and encircled by the army.
On Monday, the UN Supervisory Mission in Syria (UNSMIS) reported heavy fighting near Rastan, where activists said at least 23 soldiers and seven civilians died in fierce clashes between government forces and rebels.
The Britain-based Observatory alleged regime troops had this week carried out two “massacres” of civilians — one in Homs city in which 15 civilians were “summarily executed” and another in the town of Khan Sheikhun, in Idlib province, when they gunned down 20 people at a funeral procession.
From: Agance France Presse

Clashes across Syria continue despite an April 12 truce brokered by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan as part of a six-point plan aimed at ending violence that has swept Syria since March 2011, when the uprising against President Bashar Assad erupted.
Syria-linked violence flared again yesterday in the north Lebanon port city of Tripoli, where one person was killed and seven wounded, a security official said.