Syrian authorities have arrested two Kurdish leaders, charging one with a capital offence, as part of a campaign to curb political dissidents.

The National Organisation of Human Rights in Syria said Talal Mohammad of the banned Wifaq party, an offshoot of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK), which is also active in Turkey and Iraq, was arrested without warrant in northeastern Syria last week and not heard from since.
Mashaal Tammo, an official in Future Movement, a banned opposition party which advocates democracy, was arrested earlier and charged on August 27 with committing aggression and arming Syrians to start civil war, a capital offence.

Before his arrest, Tammo, who renounces violence, said Syrian policy towards Kurds risked a repeat of riots that killed 30 people in Syria in 2004.

Tammo has denied the charges and human rights lawyer Mohannad Al Hassani said it would require a great deal of evidence to prove that Tammo had wanted to start civil war.

"The authorities cannot resort to such fearsome charges just because they disagree with someone's opinions," he said.

A US State Department spokesman denounced Tammo's arrest: "We condemn the detention of Tammo and other Syrian prisoners of conscience and call for their immediate release."

"We encourage the international community to join us in calling on the Syrian government to stop its policy of arresting critics of the regime and to comply with its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights."

NCRI – Local shopkeepers refused to open until 11 a.m. on Saturday supporting the hunger strike by the Kurdish political prisoners in the northwestern city of Mahabad.

The State Security forces (SSF) – mullahs' suppressive regime—and local agents of the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) attacked the shopkeepers and citizens in the streets to force them to open their businesses.

Local residents flocked outside city's court. Plain-clothes security agents were taking photos and films of demonstrators. The protesters vowed to hold another demonstration on Monday.

Kurdish political prisoners have gone on hunger strike nationwide over prison conditions, said a statement marking the start of the protest on August 25.

"There are 40 prisoners in the northwestern city of Orumieh, 15 in the northwestern city of Mahabad, 13 in the western city of Sanandaj and eight in Tehran's notorious Evin prison," said the statement not locating the four remaining prisoners.

The statement calls on the "world conscience" to act on behalf of political prisoners under the worsening conditions in the mullahs' jails. Eight Kurdish journalists and political prisoners are on death row, according to the statement.

The Kurdish prisoners called for "an immediate stay of execution sentences for political prisoners and an end to all forms of torture and degrading punishments."
The strikers also demanded that prisons throughout the country come under an international monitoring committee.
   
The mullahs' inhuman regime holds political prisoners in Evin prison ward 209 run by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). In addition, Gohardasht prison, 40 kilometers west of Tehran, is another facility with an unknown number of political prisoners constantly living in grave conditions.

NCRI – The State Security Forces (SSF) – mullahs' suppressive police — Small Businesses Task Force, cracked down on internet cafes in the western city of Sanandaj on Thursday. 

The police units virtually tore down the cafes into pieces and beat up the customers primarily youths spending time in these places in summer leisure time.

The SSF Chastity Units in line with the so-called "boosting public security plan," effective April 2007, make arrests of the youngsters deemed appearing immodest in public.

The SSF in 2007 closed down 24 Internet cafes and other coffee shops, arresting 23 people, state-run media reported then.

Colonel Nader Sarkari, a SSF official told IRNA news agency that in a single day 435 coffee shops have been inspected, 170 had been warned and "23 people were detained", adding 11 of them were women in Tehran.

"Using immoral computer games, storing obscene photos ... and the presence of women wearing improper dresses were among the reasons why they have been closed down," Sarkari said.

The cafe crackdowns coincide at that time with a new wave of suppression of women under the pretext of "improper dress".

The so-called "boosting public security plan" was first introduced in April 2007 to combat popular uprisings. Mass street arrests of hundreds of thousands of women and youth under the pretext of "mal-veiling" and cracking down on "thugs and hooligans" followed. In the same period, more than 300 prisoners were sent to gallows.