He Went Back to Look at His Family's Land. Fifteen Days Later They Let Him Out.
Nihad Hassan pastors a Kurdish congregation in Beirut. He went home to see what was left of his family's property. Police held him fifteen days and never filed a charge.
Nihad Hassan went to Afrin to look at what was left of his family's property. He is from there. He had been away a long time.
On July 19, police in Afrin took him. He was held from July 20 to August 3. No charge was filed against him in that time. On August 6 he walked into his church in Beirut and about seventy Kurdish believers, most of them people who fled Syria after 2011 and have never gone back, stood up and applauded.
That is the part everyone agrees on.
The reason he was taken is where the accounts stop agreeing. A local Syrian official told AFP that Hassan was detained over allegations of inciting religious hatred on social media. The watchdog group CSW said his social media presence likely led to the arrest, and that posts on his Facebook page deemed insulting to Islam and to the prophet of Islam were reportedly the main reason. AFP reported something more uncomfortable than either: at least one post on what appeared to be Hassan's account seemed to be directed against Muslims.
Nobody outside Afrin can say for certain what was on that page, or who wrote it, or when.
