Lebanon frees held Syrian refugees

Lebanon's authorities have released all Syrian refugees in Lebanon who had been detained for not having identity papers, activists said on Tuesday. "Lebanese authorities have now released all Syrians who fled into Lebanon and were later detained for not having identity papers," human rights lawyer Nabil Halabi, who heads the Lebanese Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, told AFP. Sheikh Mazen Mohammed, the imam of a mosque in the northern city of Tripoli, said authorities had released 21 Syrians overnight. "They had been kept in custody as they did not have proper identification when they were found during the time refugees were en masse arriving to north Lebanon," Mohammed told AFP. Mohammed, an activist who has been helping the refugees settle in north Lebanon, said Prime Minister Najib Mikati had been in regular contact with Lebanese security forces to ensure the refugees were released. Syrian opposition activists along with at least 5,000 refugees have fled to Lebanon since protests against the rule of Bashar al-Assad broke out in Syria in March. More than 1,300 people have been killed and at least 10,000 others detained as Syrian forces crack down on protesters, according to rights groups. The unrest in neighbouring Syria has increasingly been a point of contention among the residents of Tripoli, a mainly Sunni Lebanese city with a minority Alawite community. Seven people were killed on Friday in clashes in Tripoli that pitted Sunni supporters of Lebanon's pro-Western opposition against Alawites loyal to a Hezbollah-led coalition backed by Syria and Iran. The armed clashes erupted shortly after some 600 people gathered for a protest against the Assad regime. Tripoli-born Mikati formed a government on June 13 in which the Syrian-backed Hezbollah alliance controls 18 out of 30 seats, ending a five-month cabinet void.