Jamal Abdel-Wahab Hafez was sentenced to 15 years for "having carried out acts unauthorised by the state and having had contact with the enemy," the National Organisation for Human Rights in Syria (NOHRS) said in a statement.

Rasmi Mohammed Bakr, Ahmad Maasum, Muawia Qatranji and lone female Mirvat Mohammed Midani received eight-year terms while Ahmad al-Atrash and Ali Arslan had five-year spells imposed on them "for violent acts against public security and for having sheltered people who had done acts of violence."

Five Kurdish men, all members of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), were jailed for "attempting through acts, plans, or writing to detach part of Syrian territory to annex it to a foreign country," NOHRS said.

Three of them, Ezzat Abdul Hanan Horo, Khalil Sido and Wahid Rashid Horo, collected eight-year sentences and the other two, Adnan Ali Hussein et Hussein Salim Mohammed received seven-year terms.

Kurdish detainees in Syria are routinely accused of wanting to transfer part of Syria to a future independent Kurdish state.

Ammar Qorabi, NOHRS president, said he had no details about the people concerned or of the allegations against them.

In a statement to AFP, he denounced the security court's "arbritrary judgements," to which there is no appeal.

Qorabi expressed "deep concern" and called on the Syrian government to "close the state security court and free all the political detainees which this court has sentenced."