BEIRUT, Lebanon: Syrian authorities have released a Syrian Kurdish Christian pastor more than two weeks after he was detained over social media posts, a church official told AFP on Tuesday.
“Pastor Nihad Hassan was released yesterday evening,” the official from a Kurdish church in Lebanon said, requesting anonymity to discuss the matter.
Hassan “will return to Lebanon,” where he usually lives, “because staying in Syria is dangerous for him and his family,” the official added.
Last week, the Kurdish Church in Lebanon had said on its Facebook page that Syrian authorities had arrested Hassan, “pastor of the Kurdish Evangelical Church in Beirut, in connection with certain social media posts attributed to him.”
A local Syrian official had told AFP that Hassan was detained in Afrin, a historically Kurdish-majority region in northwest Syria, over allegations of “inciting religious hatred” on social media.
