DAMASCUS: The Syrian authorities on Sunday blamed inmates for provoking rioting in a prison for political detainees that human rights groups said had left at least 25 people dead.

The official SANA news agency said security forces took action to put down a violent protest by prisoners in Saydnaya jail outside Damascus on Saturday.

"Prisoners sentenced for crimes of terrorism and extremism caused trouble... in the Saydnaya prison. They attacked their comrades during a prison inspection," it said, without making clear if order had been restored.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 25 people were killed after military police fired live bullets at Islamist inmates when the rioting erupted on Saturday after a raid by prison guards.

The group said on Sunday in a new statement received in Nicosia that "rioting by Islamist prisoners who are victims of humiliation and bad treatment continued today".

SANA made no mention of any casualties in its report on the incident at the prison, one of the largest in Syria that houses mainly Islamist political prisoners.

"A security force unit immediately took action to remedy the situation and restore calm in the prison," it said, adding that measures would be taken against the troublemakers.

One inmate had told the BBC's Arabic service that the guards had treated the prisoners roughly during the raids and had desecrated copies of the Koran.

"They shackled our hands behind us, confiscated our clothes and possessions and beat us. And they insulted the Koran, they trod on the Koran," he said.

The Syrian Human Rights Committee, in a report cited by the Lebanese newspaper Al-Mostaqbal, quoted a prisoner reached by cell phone as saying the riot broke out after military policemen trampled on the Koran.

Syria has cracked down on dissidents in recent months, drawing strong criticism from the West particularly since the arrests are being carried out under emergency laws in force since 1963.

Relatives of the prisoners told the Syrian Observatory that security forces blocked roads to the prison and to Tishrin hospital where casualties from the riot were taken, preventing them from reaching both areas.

The Syrian League for the Defence of Human Rights denounced the "excessive use of force," in a statement received in Damascus.

Its president Abdel Karim Rihawi also called for "an immediate investigation in order to punish those responsible for this incident, be they inmates or members of the security forces".

The organisation also urged the authorities to deal with the issues "that led to the rioting by improving prison conditions" and said detention centres should be run by the justice ministry, not the military.

The Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat reported that supreme guide of Syria's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, Sheikh Abu Anas Ali Sadreddin Bayanouni, sent a message to UN chief Ban Ki-moon urging him "to end the carnage" in Saydnaya.

Saydnaya prison was built in 1987 to accommodate 5,000 inmates but can take up to 10,000, according to the Syrian Human Rights Committee.

In 2004, it held several hundred Muslim Brothers as well as leftists, Palestinians, Islamist militants and detained Syrian soldiers, according to the rights group.


- AFP/so