Sudan’s Human Rights Crisis: Submission to the UN Human Rights Committee

(13 June 2014) Next month the United Nations Human Rights Committee will review Sudan’s progress implementing its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee will assess, amongst other things, Sudan’s compliance guaranteeing the right to life, the right to be free from torture and the freedoms of expression, association and assembly since it last reviewed the situation in Sudan in 2007.

The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) and REDRESS submitted just a selection of the hundreds of cases and incidents documented from 2007 to date that testify to the fact that Sudan is facing a serious, ongoing human rights crisis.

Gross violations continue to be committed in armed conflicts, in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile. Meanwhile, civil society and the media have been subjected to repeated crackdowns. Public protests have been met with excessive force, and frequently been followed by arbitrary detentions and ill-treatment. There has been no accountability for killings, torture and ill-treatment of civilians in the conflict zones or during public protests around the country. Sudan’s legal system fails to protect its citizens, particularly women, and foreign nationals living in the country, from violations and facilitates breaches, such as torture, which are committed with impunity. This applies particularly to the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) which enjoy virtually unlimited powers. Impunity for violations, both in the context of armed conflict and in other situations, remains the norm. Legislative and institutional reforms to address widely acknowledged systemic deficiencies have, with few exceptions, not been advanced.

In the submission made in June 2014, ACJPS and REDRESS call on the UN Human Rights Committee to do its utmost to ensure that Sudan upholds its obligations under the ICCPR.

Read the introduction to the report, summarising human rights developments and concerns in Sudan since August 2007 here.

Read the full ACJPS and REDRESS submission to the UN Human Rights Committee ahead of its examination of Sudan’s fourth periodic report under the ICCPR, June 2014 here.

Background

Representatives of the Government of Sudan are due to meet with the UN Human Rights Committee in July 2014 to discuss their progress implementing Sudan’s obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a global treaty that the Government of Sudan signed and agreed to be bound to in 1986. The review will cover the period 2007 to present.

All States Parties to the ICCPR are required to submit periodic reports to the Human Rights Committee so that it can review their progress towards securing the rights set out in the treaty. The Committee will make recommendations to the Government of Sudan based on information concerning the human rights situation in Sudan provided by other United Nations agencies, the Sudanese authorities and non-governmental organisations.

During the review the Committee will focus on a list of issues that include Sudan’s constitutional and legal frameworks including the constitutional review process, the protection of the right to life and freedom from torture, including the situation in Sudan’s conflict zones, the rights of refugees and internally displaced persons, freedom of religion, non-discrimination in particular between women and men and the rights of minorities, and respect for the right to freedom of expression, association and assembly in the country.

You can read the report submitted by the Government of Sudan to the Committee on the United Nations website here.

Contact:

For ACJPS, Katherine Perks, ACJPS Programme Director, email: info@acjps.org

For REDRESS, Eva Sanchis, Redress Communications Officer, email: eva@redress.org