The demonstrators were held on Sunday after staging a sit-in organised by Kurdish political parties that was dispersed by security forces.

"Late on Sunday night the authorities released 191 Kurdish militants who were detained that morning," the National Organisation of Human Rights in Syria said in a statement.

The rights group said on Sunday that the parties had organised the sit-in "in protest at a decree forbidding the sale without prior authorisation of land and property in border areas."

On Monday, the group said the interior minister met those arrested before they were released "to reassure them that the decree was not aimed at the Kurdish population but applied to all of Syria's border regions."

More than 1.5 million Kurds live in Syria, mainly in the north bordering Turkey and Iraq. They comprise nine percent of the population and have long sought official recognition of the Kurdish language and their culture.