Raid on Residents’ Association Meeting in Khartoum Bahri

(3 December 2013) Eight members of a Khartoum residents’ association in Khartoum Bahri have been detained without charge or access to their families or lawyers since Sudanese security services raided one of their meetings on 30 November.

Officers of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), armed with Kalashnikov rifles and wearing a brown uniform, raided the meeting of Shambat Residents’ Association at around 10pm. The meeting was held at a private home in the Shambat neighbourhood of Khartoum Bahri. The eight members of the association attending the meeting were forced into Landcruisers owned by the NISS and taken to the NISS offices in the Hilat Hamad area of Khartoum Bahri.

The detainees, who remain in NISS custody without charge or access to their lawyers or families are:

1. Omer Hassan Badawi, (m), 24 years of age, medical doctor.
2. Yasir Daoud, (m), 25 years of age, taxi driver.
3. Ahmed Ismail, (m), 24 years of age, electrical engineer.
4. Abdulgfar, (m), 22 years of age, student of Sudan University, Khartoum.
5. Shams Eldin Al-Haj, (m), 26 years of age, taxi driver.
6. Tarig El Sheikh, (m), 40 years of age, computer engineer.
7. Arafaat, (m), computer engineer.
8. Muhajeer, (m), 24 years of age, graduate of the Faculty of Agriculture, Khartoum University.

The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) calls on the Sudanese authorities to immediately grant the detainees access to their families and lawyers and any medical assistance they may require. The authorities must guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of the detainees and order their immediate release in the absence of valid legal charges that are consistent with international law and standards or, if such charges exist, to bring them before an impartial, independent, and competent tribunal and guarantee their procedural rights at all times.

The rights to freedoms of assembly, association, and expression are enshrined in the Interim National Constitution (2005) and Sudan’s commitments under international law.

Background

ACJPS is concerned that the reasons for the arrests are not known and the detainees may be at risk of ill-treatment.

Over 800 people were detained by the police and the NISS during anti-austerity and anti-government protests which took place in a number of cities in late September and early October 2013. Many detainees were released within a few hours or days but it has been estimated by human rights groups that dozens remain in NISS detention without charge because of their presumed political opinions.  The protests were met with excessive force by the Sudanese authorities. Over 170 protestors were killed and hundreds more injured. Most of those killed and injured were shot in the head and upper body with live ammunition. ACJPS and other human rights groups have called on the African Union and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) to send an urgent commission of inquiry into the circumstances leading to the deaths of protestors and other human rights violations that were perpetrated in connection with the protests.

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