THE SUDAN CALL’S REPORT FOR THE 39TH SESSION OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL IN GENEVA,

10 SEPTEMBER 2018
SUMMARY OF KEY POINTS
• The Special Procedures mandate on Sudan should be strengthened by moving it to agenda
Item 4 and appointing a Special Rapporteur with a mandate to monitor, verify and publicly
report on violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in all parts of
Sudan. It is only logical to keep a country like Sudan in item 4 when its President is wanted
by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes
against humanity.

• Sudan does not belong under item 10, which provides for technical assistance and capacity
building, and an Independent Expert instead of a Special Rapporteur. The Government of
Sudan has not shown the political will to improve human rights. On the contrary, the
Government of Sudan and particularly the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the National
Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) is the main perpetrator of human rights violations in
Sudan.

• Moving Sudan from agenda item 4 to agenda item 10 in 2011 was a mistake, which has
encouraged the Government of Sudan to continue its human rights violations. Last year’s
Item 10 resolution on the human rights situation in Sudan was very weak and does not
reflect the reality of the situation on the ground or the plight of the victims of grave human
rights violations in Sudan, particularly in the conflict zones. The human rights situation is
worse now, particularly in the conflict zones, than when Sudan was under item 4.

• Although the current item 10 resolution allows for monitoring, the Government of Sudan
has never allowed the Independent Expert to carry out this part of his mandate effectively.
Since Sudan was moved to item 10, the Independent Expert has not been able to reach out
to the victims of human rights violations in the war zones, especially in those areas where
gross violations of human rights have taken place such as Tabit and Heiban.

• There is a particular need for a Special Rapporteur in 2019, especially in the run-up to the
2020 elections and the attempted plan to amend the Constitution to allow General Bashir,
who is wanted by the ICC and has already ruled Sudan for nearly three decades, to continue
in power for another term.

• The human rights situation in Sudan should be discussed in the Human Rights Council in
every session, not just once a year.

• Any suggestion of an accelerated approach to ending the mandate of the Independent

Expert or transitioning Sudan away from a Special Procedures mandate would be totally
inappropriate without a far-reaching and fundamental improvement in the Government of
Sudan’s human rights performance.

• The opening of an OHCHR office in Sudan (recommended in the UN-AU Special report of 1
June 2018), is not a substitute for having a Special Rapporteur. The Government of Sudan’s
long practice of obstruction leaves little hope that the office would be able to operate
 effectively even if it was given permission to work in the country. The Government of Sudan
has consistently obstructed the work of UNAMID’s human rights section by delaying visas for
staff, denying access and preventing staff recruitment.

• The human rights situation in Sudan has got no better over the last 12 months and in some
respects is worse. The following negative developments have taken place:

o General Bashir and senior figures in his Government are still wanted by the ICC for
atrocity crimes in Darfur. The ICC’s investigations in Darfur are still ongoing. States
Parties to the ICC, including African governments, should honour their obligations
under the Rome Statute and prioritise the interests of the victims of atrocity crimes,
not those of the perpetrators.
o General Bashir has undermined both the system of international criminal justice and
the UN Security Council, which referred the Darfur situation to the ICC, by
continuing to travel abroad, even to countries that are parties to the Rome Statute.
The international community has allowed him to do so by failing to take action to
enforce the ICC’s arrest warrant. By failing to arrest Bashir, the international
community has given him carte balance to continue committing grave crimes across
the country.
o The genocide in Darfur continues unabated. In the Jebel Marra area of Darfur, the
Government’s Rapid Support Forces and allied militia have burned villages, killed
civilians, raped women and caused further mass displacement. There are constant
reports of attacks on IDPs and farmers by militias and armed pastoralists across
Darfur. For example, on 29 August, two IDPs were shot dead by armed men on their
way to their camp in Zalingei where UNAMID will have its HQ.
o During her first visit to Darfur in February 2018, the UN Secretary-General’s Special
Representative on sexual violence in armed conflict expressed deep concern about
the level of sexual violence and the existence of a deep-seated culture of denial.
o The Government’s Rapid Support Forces attacked civilians from the Ingessana
community in Blue Nile in May 2018 in breach of the Government’s unilateral
cessation of hostilities
o Humanitarian access is still denied by the Government to vulnerable populations in
conflict-affected zones in Darfur, Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile.
The aid blockade to the liberated areas in Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and
Blue Nile is now in its seventh year. Denial of humanitarian access is a war crime in
international humanitarian law.
o The Government is still restricting UNAMID’s freedom of movement to carry out its
mandate to protect civilians in contravention of UN Security Council resolutions and
the Status of Forces Agreement. On 28 August 2018, UNAMID Joint Special
Representative Mamabolo complained that UNAMID had been denied access 14
times since July trying to reach locations in the Eastern Jebel Marra to carry out its
mandate to protect civilians.
o The Government continues to restrict religious freedom and belief by demolishing
churches, interfering in internal Church affairs and making Christian schools open on
Sundays. President Bashir recently told the ruling party’s Shura Council that his
Government was a full-fledged Islamist regime that was ready to amputate hands,
feet and even necks.
o 10 out of Sudan’s 18 states are now under a State of Emergency following the
imposition of a State of Emergency in North Kordofan state and Kassala states in
December 2017.
o The Government of Sudan continues to restrict civil and political rights. NISS
arbitrarily arrests, detains and tortures civilians, particularly human rights defenders,
youth leaders, on-line activists, journalists, professionals and opposition party
members. Detainees are often kept in solitary confinement and denied access to
their families, lawyers and essential medicines. The latest example is the arrest of
four doctors from El Obeid hospital who were detained last month and have only
just been released. Sudan’s repressive National Security Act must be repealed.
o In January 2018, the Sudanese authorities carried out a campaign of mass arrests
and detentions of hundreds of peaceful protestors who took part in demonstrations
against the 2018 budget austerity measures. The police and NISS used excessive
force to disperse and arrest protestors, resulting in 6 deaths in Darfur.
o The Government of Sudan continues to detain and torture hundreds of Prisoners of
War and denies the ICRC access to them. Among them is the Head of the Sudan
Liberation Movement/Transitional Council, Nimr Abdel Rahman. Musa Hilal and his
followers have been detained since November 2017 without due process. Some
Prisoners of War are reported to have recently been tortured to death.
o Restrictions on press freedom have got worse with the intensification of post-
printing censorship by NISS which often confiscates whole print runs of newspapers
without giving a reason in order to inflict financial damage. Reporters Without
Borders ranked Sudan 174th out of 180 countries in its 2017 World Press Freedom
Index. In May 2018, the Council of Ministers approved a new Press Law which would
further tighten restrictions on media freedom.
o Women face continued discrimination, including harassment, criminalisation and
corporal punishment through the arbitrary application of Sudan’s repressive Public -
Order Laws. Some of them are currently being taken to Court, including the
journalist Winnie Omar. Women human rights defenders are subject to arbitrary
arrest and detention, and various forms of ill-treatment while in custody, including
sexual harassment and assault. The case of Noura Hussein, who was sentenced to
death on 10 May 2018, illustrates the injustice of Sudan’s laws which allow girls to
be married at the age of 10.
o Khartoum has now extended its reach by asking the security services in neighbouring
countries to deport Sudanese activists, who have then been detained on their return
to Sudan. Among them are Walid Hussein, the editor -in-chief of the well-known
website Al Raquba and Hisham Ali, an activist who exposed corruption. The latest
example is what happened to Dalia Tutu, a refugee from the Nuba Mountains under
UNHCR protection, who was asked to stop writing about human rights violations in
Sudan. This policy culminated in the Chairman of the Sudan Call, Imam Sadiq al
Mahdi, being denied re-entry to Egypt on 30 June 2018 after he had taken part in
discussions in Berlin with the German Government on how to revive Sudan’s peace
process.
o The Government of Sudan also regularly prevents opposition politicians from leaving
the country in contravention of Article 42 (freedom of movement) of the
Constitution. In August 2018, the Sudanese Government prevented Omar Degair
(Chairman of the Sudanese Congress Party), Mohamed Abdallah Douma (President
of the Darfur Bar Association), Sara Nugdallah (Secretary-General of the National
 Umma Party) and Jalila Khamis (a civil society activist from the Nuba Mountains),
from attending a Sudan Call meeting in Paris to discuss the AUHIP-led peace process.
o Millions of Sudanese are either internally displaced or are refugees. Hundreds of
thousands are so desperate to flee from violent conflict and repression in Sudan that
they are prepared to take the risk of falling into the hands of human trafficking
gangs and militias in Libya (as reported on CNN) or losing their lives in the
Mediterranean. The only effective way of reducing the flow of migrants is to end the
war and bring peace and democratic transformation to so that would-be migrants
can enjoy safety, freedom and livelihood opportunities in their own country.
Security measures and strengthening border controls will not provide a strategic
solution.
o Sudan has been on the US list of State Sponsors of Terrorism for more than two
decades. The Government of Sudan was involved in harbouring Osama Bin Laden
and Ayman al Zawahiri, in attempting to assassinate President Hosni Mubarak in
Addis Ababa, the headquarters of the African Union, supporting terrorist
organisations in Libya and Somalia, supporting the Lord’s Resistance Army and
harbouring its leader Joseph Kony, and providing ideological training in the Islamic
African University for Islamist students from Nigeria (Boko Haram), Somalia (al
Shabab), Angola, Mozambique, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Chad and other African
countries.

• All these violations are facilitated by the absence of adequate legal and institutional
protection for human rights (see Annex). Although Sudan is a party to a number of
international human rights treaties, the Government of Sudan continues to ignore its
obligations under these treaties, even though they are embedded in its own Constitution.
Victims of human rights violations face barriers to justice due to the absence of an effective
complaints and redress mechanism, the enormous powers enjoyed by the National
Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) and the immunities afforded to NISS officials and
members of other security forces, fostering a climate of complete impunity. Technical
assistance and capacity building will not work in these circumstances because Sudan’s legal
system is “too deformed to be reformed”.

DETAIL

The international Criminal Court

Since 2009/10, President Bashir has been subject to an arrest warrant from the International
Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity in connection
with the situation in Darfur. In addition to President Bashir, other senior figures in the Government
such as Ahmed Harun, the Governor of North Kordofan state, and Abdel Raheem Mohamed Hussain,
the Governor of Khartoum state - are also subject to ICC arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes
against humanity. With these people still running the Government, it doesn’t make sense to say that
the human rights situation is improving.

Bashir is undermining the international criminal justice system by constantly travelling abroad and
the international community is allowing him to do so. The UN Security Council, which deferred the
situation in Darfur to the ICC, should take responsibility for enforcing these arrest warrants. It is
ironic that the same governments that took the lead in establishing the ICC are now engaged in
normalising relations with the Government of Sudan, whose Head of State is the first incumbent
President to be wanted by the ICC and that they are also trying to build the capacity of his
Government’s legal system.

The Sudan Call urges all States Parties to the Rome Statute to honour their obligations to arrest and
surrender President Bashir to the ICC. All States Parties to the Rome Statute, including African
governments, should prioritise the interests of the victims of atrocity crimes, not those of the
perpetrators.

Darfur

The genocide in Darfur continues unabated. 15 years since the start of the Darfur crisis, 2 million
displaced persons, mainly from the Fur, Zaghawa and Masalit tribes, are still living in camps in Darfur
and a further 300,000 in camps in Eastern Chad, while their lands are occupied by “new settlers”
from Arab tribes. Tens of thousands of Darfuri asylum-seekers continue to flee to the West to
escape the violence.

The Government of Sudan and the Sudan Revolutionary Front have declared a unilateral cessation of
hostilities, government forces, including the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and allied militia are still
pursuing an active counter-insurgency campaign in the Jebel Marra area of Darfur against the Sudan
Liberation Movement led by Abdel Wahid. This campaign is based on collective punishment of the
civilian population, the enlistment of tribal militias as proxies, denial of humanitarian access to
starve the population and the use of rape as a weapon of war. It has resulted in the burning and
looting of dozens of villages, the killing of civilians and the rape of women, forcing tens of thousands
of local residents to flee.

For example, the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies documented a number of attacks
perpetrated against civilian targets in East Jebel Marra by government forces between 9 March and
2 April 2018. In the areas of Jawa, Seena, Feina, Dawa Sawani and Rakoona, 12 villages were set on
fire and burnt to the ground, 23 civilians were killed and tens seriously injured. 1 According to the
UN, some 16 villages in the Feina area were destroyed and civilians killed by militia on 4 April 2.

The Government of Sudan has refused to allow an independent investigation by the Organisation for
the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) into credible allegations by Amnesty International in
2016 of the use of chemical weapons against civilians in the Jebel Marra. If they had nothing to
hide, they would not have blocked an investigation.

As the AU Peace and Security Council acknowledged on 12 June 2018, attacks on civilians are still
taking place across Darfur. For example, several IDPs were killed by pro-government militia when
they tried to return to the villages of Abu Jabra, Digrais, Eidan and Higair Tunu south of Nyala in May,
June and July 2018.3 UNAMID expressed concern about a surge in attacks on IDPs in three camps
(Khamsa Dagaig, Ardiba and Jedda) in Central Darfur state on 21-23 May. Three IDPs in Ardiba camp
were reported to have been killed by the RSF. 4

According to the UN Secretary-General, sexual violence remains prevalent, especially around IDP
camps but also in villages to which some IDPs have tried to return. Amongst IDPs, women and
children are particularly vulnerable and at the greatest risk of violence when going to markets or

1 ACJPS: Attacks by Sudanese Government Forces on Civilians in Jebel Marra in South Darfur, 18 April 2018
2 Report of the UN Secretary-General on UNAMID in Darfur, 25 April 2018, para 3
3 Sudan Tribune, 3 May, 5 June, 7 June, 13 July 2018
4 Sudan Tribune, 23 May 2018
collecting water and fire-wood outside the camps. On 19 December 2017, a 16 year old girl and 19
year old woman were gang-raped at gunpoint by six armed militiamen when they were gathering
firewood 3 km from the IDP camp in Nertiti in Central Darfur state 5. In another case, a family living in
West Darfur, which had previously fled to Chad as refugees, were forced back across the border into
Chad after a relative was gang-raped, for fear of further attacks.6 In 2017, UNAMID documented 152
cases of conflict-related sexual violence, although these incidents continue to be chronically under-
reported. The perpetrators were identified by victims as armed men or militiamen in 70% of cases
and as members of the national security apparatus, the SAF, the RSF, border guards and the police in
30% of cases7.

The Government of Sudan has repeatedly declared its intention to shut down the IDP camps,
although IDPs have nowhere to go as their lands are now occupied by new settlers brought in by the
Government. In March 2018, the Governor of South Darfur declared his intention to close Kalma
camp, one of the largest IDP camp in Darfur, and only decided to abandon his plan after an
international outcry. All returns of IDPs and refugees must be voluntary, informed, safe and
dignified. While talking about the voluntary return of IDPs, the Government of Sudan is displacing
more IDPs.

The Government of Sudan is still denying UNAMID peacekeepers access to conflict affected areas,
particularly in the Jebel Marra. On 28 August 2018, UNAMID Joint Special Representative, Jeremiah
Mamabolo, called for unfettered access for UNAMID to the Eastern Jebel Marra and disclosed that
the state authorities have prevented UNAMID 14 times from reaching parts of Eastern Jebel Marra.

The accelerated withdrawal of UNAMID by 2020 would be a grave mistake. The reason it was
deployed in the first place was to protect civilians while a political solution was found to address the
root causes of the conflict. As long as no political solution has been found, UNAMID should remain.
The presence of UNAMID is organically linked to reaching a final political settlement. The
Government has been pursuing a military solution under cover of the Darfur Document for Peace in
Darfur (DDPD). Seven years after it was signed, very few of the DDPD’s provisions have been
implemented by the Government and it is now time-expired. It is essential that UNAMID continues
to protect civilians and conduct human rights monitoring and reporting throughout Darfur until
conditions on the ground improve.

The regime in Khartoum has successfully restricted information about the situation in Darfur by
denying journalists access to Darfur. As a result, there is almost no coverage of Darfur in the
international media. Even foreign official delegations are only allowed to visit under strictly
controlled conditions and under close supervision by NISS minders.

Southern Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile

The Government of Sudan has used the same tactics to attack civilians in the Two Areas - Southern
Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile – that it used in Darfur, including aerial bombing, ground
attacks by the Rapid Support Forces and allied tribal militia, destruction of civilian property, denial of
humanitarian access and mass displacement. The conflict, in the Two Areas, which has now entered
its seventh year, has displaced 500,000 IDPs and forced 250,000 refugees to flee to neighbouring
countries.

5ACJPS: Government allied militias gang rape a 16 year old girl and a woman in Nertiti, Central Darfur state, 19
December 2017
6 Letter dated 28 December 2017 from the Panel of Experts on the Sudan, para 120
7 Report of the UN Secretary-General on Conflict-related sexual violence, 23 March 2018, para 71
Aerial bombardment and large-scale ground attacks by government forces during the dry season,
which have marked the conflict hitherto, have been largely absent in Southern Kordofan/Nuba
Mountains in 2018 due to a series of short-term unilateral ceasefire declarations by the Government
and SPLM/N. But there have been reports of looting of livestock and abductions by armed militias
allied to the Government of Sudan, which have triggered displacement and scared communities
away from their agricultural lands 8.

Civilians in the Ingessana Hills in Blue Nile came under attack when the Rapid Support Forces
targeted forces of the SPLM/N faction led by Malik Agar in May 2018, in contravention of the
Sudanese Government’s unilateral cessation of hostilities.

SAF Military Intelligence has continued to target civilians in the Two Areas with arbitrary arrests and
detention on the basis of their perceived political affiliation with SPLM/N9.

There are many Prisoners of War from the Two Areas still being held by the Government in
Damazine, El Obeid and Khartoum.

Eastern Sudan

The humanitarian situation in Eastern Sudan is very serious and its human development indicators,
including maternal and infant mortality, are amongst the worst in Sudan.

This year, the Government has imposed a State of Emergency in Kassala and Southern Tokar in Red
Sea state. Kassala has been turned into a military camp after the Rapid Support Forces were
deployed there. Local communities have complained about looting and harassment by RSF
militiamen.

A number of peaceful protestors were detained in Port Sudan in June 2018 after demonstrations
over lack of clean drinking water and they have still not been released.

Freedom of Expression, Assembly and Association

The Sudanese authorities have continued to restrict basic freedoms of expression, assembly and
association through violent crackdowns on peaceful protestors and have harassed human rights
defenders, youth activists, bloggers and opposition party members, including through arbitrary and
prolonged detention without charge and access to their families and lawyers.

In November 2017, youth leaders who exercised their constitutional right to engage in peaceful
protests and who organised a civil disobedience campaign, were subject to arbitrary arrest and
detention.

In January/February 2018, there was a further major crackdown on opposition activists in connection
with peaceful protests over the rise of the cost of living in Sudan. Opposition leaders, including the
leaders of the Sudanese Congress Party and the Sudanese Communist Party and prominent members
of the Umma Party, women leaders, activists, students, and ordinary citizens were detained solely for
exercising their right of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly. The Sudanese authorities,
including NISS and police, used excessive force to disperse the protestors, including tear gas, batons
and water hose pipes. On 7 January 2018, one student was killed and 6 injured in El Geneina in West
Darfur when joint forces of NISS and police used live ammunition to disperse a peaceful student
march. On 20 January 2018, at least five people were killed and 26 others injured when joint forces of

8 National Human Rights Monitors Organisation, Human Rights Update, September 2017-February 2018
9 ACJPS: Human rights violations in South Kordofan, 11 April 2018 provides a number of examples
SAF and the RSF used live ammunition on a crowd of protestors at Hasahisa camp in Zalingei, Central
Darfur state.

50 political detainees were finally released on 10 April 2018, a few days before the visit of the
Independent Expert. But hundreds of other political detainees from Darfur and other conflict zones
remained in prison. Sheikh Matar Younis Ali Hussein, a religious teacher and prominent peace
activist from Zalingei in Darfur who has called for the protection of IDPs and has been a vocal critic of
the Government’s policy of recruiting young Darfuris to join the Rapid Support Forces, was detained
without charge from 1 April until 26 July 2018.

The Government of Sudan has instigated security services in neighbouring countries to deport
Sudanese activists back to Sudan and to expel opposition politicians. Hisham Ali, a Sudanese activist
who was critical of government corruption and was deported back to Sudan from Saudi Arabia on 29
May 2018, is still in detention without charge. On 30 June 2018, Sadiq al Mahdi, the Chairman of the
Sudan Call, was denied re-entry to Egypt after participating in a meeting with the German
Government about the peace process in Sudan.

Opposition politicians and civil society leaders face frequent restrictions on their freedom of
movement and are prevented from leaving the country.

Some prominent political parties continue to be denied the right of association, in particular the
Republican Brotherhood, which was established in the 1940s and whose founder, Mahmoud
Mohamed Taha, was executed in 1985 during Nimeiri’s dictatorship at the instigation of the Muslim
Brothers who are still ruling today.

Press freedom

The Government of Sudan continues to confiscate newspapers, to order chief editors not to cover
certain topics and to harass and intimidate and arrest journalists who publish articles critical of the
regime or report on the activities of the opposition. For example, the radio journalist Ahmed al-Dhi
Bishara has been in detention since mid-July 2018 for criticising the regime’s policies10. In June 2018,
the journalist Ahmed Abakar had his press licence revoked at the request of NISS after having
previously been summoned and interrogated by NISS about two articles he wrote for the London-
based newspaper, Al Sharq al Awsat about divisions in the ruling party and NISS’s seizure of a
newspaper print run.11

Post-print censorship, whereby NISS officials confiscate whole print runs of newspapers in order to
inflict financial damage, has intensified. For example, the newspaper, Al Jareeda, was confiscated 12
times in August alone; Akhir Lahza was confiscated on 8 July, 22-27 July and 30 July and Al Intibaha
on 24 July 2018. Journalists Salma Tijani, who wrote for Akhbar al Watan, the mouthpiece of the
Sudanese Congress Party, and Ahmed Yunus, who wrote for Al Sharq al Awsat, were both banned
from writing.12

Sudan is ranked 174th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders 2018 World Press Freedom
Index.

10 The Arab Media Crisis Network condemns the continued confiscation of newspapers and arrest and
summoning of journalists, 30 August 2018
11 Alkarama: Harassment, threats and revocation of press licence against journalist Ahmed Abakar, 5 August

2018.
12 Arab Media Crisis Network, 2 August 2018
In May, the Sudanese Council of Ministers adopted a draft Press and Publications Law for
presentation to Parliament which would introduce even more restrictions on press freedom and
extend these to the electronic media. This repressive draft Press law has been introduced in
preparation for the 2020 elections.

Elections

The Sudanese people have been deprived of their right to free and fair elections since 1989.

Bashir, who is wanted by the ICC, now wants to amend the Constitution to remove the restrictions
on term limits so that he can run again in Presidential elections in 2020. The Sudan Call is strongly
opposed to amending the Constitution for this purpose.

Given the recent experience with Joseph Kabila in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the case of
Bashir needs to be taken even more seriously as he is the only incumbent President wanted by the
ICC.

The Council of Ministers recently approved a draft Electoral Law prepared by the ruling NCP for
presentation to Parliament without even consulting other parties in the Government of National
Unity.

Freedom of religion and belief

The Government continues to restrict freedom of religion and belief. The Sudanese authorities,
including NISS, has been active in demolishing churches, harassing church leaders and intimidating
Christian communities. In early 2017, officials in Khartoum announced that they would demolish 27
churches in Khartoum. Officials have also refused to authorise the construction of new churches on
the pretext that no new churches are needed due to the secession of South Sudan. This ignores the
continued presence of Christians in Khartoum, including amongst the Nuba community and the
remaining South Sudanese community.

On 11 February 2018, the Khartoum state riot police demolished the Evangelical church in the Haj
Yousif are of Khartoum without any notice when bulldozers arrived at the end of the church service.
This action followed a claim by the head of the NCP-controlled neighbourhood popular committee
that he owned the land and had sold it to a new owner.

The Government has continued to meddle in the internal affairs of churches by imposing an
unelected leadership on the Sudanese Evangelical Church and on the Church of Christ and then
charging the former leadership with trespass when they try to access their property.

In Khartoum state, church schools have been required to open on a Sunday and make Friday and
Saturday their weekend. This is a departure from decades-long practice, whereby Christian schools
in Sudan have been permitted to take Sunday as a holiday for religious observance since

On 4 January 2018, the US Government announced that Sudan had been re-designated as a country
of concern in the list of countries that have engaged in or tolerated systematic, ongoing and
egregious violations of religious freedom.

Sudan is a multi-ethnic, multi-faith and multi-cultural society and its citizens must be allowed to
exercise their constitutional right to practice their religion freely.

Torture
Torture is still being systematically practised by Sudan’s security agencies. Many of those released
after the peaceful demonstrations in January 2018 reported that they had been subjected to torture
or other ill-treatment while in detention and that those coming from Sudan’s marginalised areas had
been particularly targeted. Some political leaders were also denied essential medication.

On 5 March 2018, Mohamed Awad Bakheit, a civilian living in the Nuba Mountains, was arrested by
SAF Military Intelligence and held incommunicado in Al Abbasiya for 3 months. During his detention
he was tortured, including being severely beaten and slashed on his back. According to a medical
expert, the serious scars inflicted on Mr Bakheit were the result of a leather whip saturated with
sulphuric acid.13

On 13 April 2018, Mr. Mosa Mohamed Salih, a 72 year-old member of the Fur tribe was arrested from
Rakoona village in the East Jebel Marra by members of Rapid Support Forces and taken to the nearby
SAF/RSF camp where he was detained without charge for his alleged affiliation with SLM-AW. He died
on 14 April, after spending one day in custody, during which he is reported to have been severely
tortured, kicked and covered in hot water.

Sudan signed the Convention against Torture in 1986. But more than 30 years later, Bashir’s
Government has yet to ratify the Convention. In May 2016, during Sudan’s Universal Periodic Review
at the Human Rights Council, Sudan accepted for the second time recommendations to ratify the
Convention but has yet to do so. The Government of Sudan should be urged to ratify the
Convention against Torture and amend its laws to ensure full compliance with the convention.
Although the Sudanese authorities have received some training to help them prepare for ratification
of the CAT, this has not stopped NISS and other security officials from continuing to torture
detainees. What matters is not signing or ratifying pieces of paper but what actually happens inside
Sudan’s prisons, detention centres and ghost houses.

Lack of accountability and legal protection for human rights

The National Security Act, which came into force in 2010, gives NISS extensive powers of arrest
detention and immunity from prosecution and disciplinary action. This has resulted in a culture of
complete impunity. This is in contradiction to the Interim National Constitution based on the 2005
Comprehensive Peace Agreement which provides for NISS to be an intelligence-gathering and
advisory agency. The Constitution was amended in January 2015 to give NISS even more powers.

The Government of Sudan should amend the National Security Act to remove NISS’s powers of
arrest and detention and remove all immunities provided to members of NISS. Without radical
changes in Sudan’s national security laws and practices, the human rights situation will not improve.

Women and the Public Order Laws

Women in Sudan are being systematically targeted and marginalised by the Government. Driven by
its ideology of Political Islam, this regime has deprived women of their rights and basic freedoms,
even when they have tried to earn a living to sustain their families.

Women continue to be subject to discriminatory treatment, corporal punishment and imprisonment

through the arbitrary application of Sudan’s repressive Public Order Law (1994), which was not
amended to bring it into line with the 2005 Interim National Constitution. Female human rights

13 Human Rights and Development Organisation (HUDO), 26 June 2018

defenders have been particularly targeted and have been subjected to arbitrary arrest on trumped
up charges, incommunicado detention and sexual assault.

Child marriage

Although Sudan has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (which forbids marriage under
the age of 18), Sudan’s laws allow children to be married as young as 10 years old and allow women
and girls to be married without their consent if a male guardian agrees. The case of Noura Hussein
Hamad, which has attracted world-wide attention, illustrates why this is so dangerous and inhuman.
On 10 May 2018, 19 year old Noura was sentenced to death after she had been forced into an
arranged marriage agreed by her family against her will. Noura is not the only girl whose life has
been endangered by Sudan’s unjust legal framework. If it had not been for the massive international
outcry, Noura would have been executed.

The Government of Sudan should abolish child marriage and all the laws that discriminate against
women and girls. The Government should sign and ratify the Convention for the Elimination of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and should do so without adding the sort of reservations
that would render this meaningless. Sudan is one of only three countries that has not signed
CEDAW.

Migration/Khartoum Process

The Government of Sudan is one of the biggest producers of IDPs and refugees, who flee the country
as a result of war, repression and socio-economic conditions. Khartoum has also been criticised by
UNHCR for the forced refoulement of refugees from Sudan to neighbouring countries

The only durable solution to the problem of mass migration from Sudan is to end wars and
marginalisation and have democratic transformation.

The Government of Sudan cannot be a genuine partner for the EU in combatting illegal migration
and human trafficking because there are indications that some Sudanese officials are themselves
complicit in human trafficking, as documented by various organisations including Human Rights
Watch and Sudan Democracy First Group. By focusing on strengthening border management, the
EU has helped to legitimise the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) which Sudan is using to try to prevent
refugees crossing Sudan’s border with Libya. But the RSF is composed of Janjaweed who were
responsible for the worst of the violence in Darfur and the Two Areas and continue to commit grave
human rights violations against civilians.

The issue of migration in Africa cannot be addressed through security measures alone. The solution
lies in supporting democratisation and equal citizenship.

Economic and social rights

The mass of the Sudanese population are suffering from soaring food prices and shortage of fuel and
life-saving medicines as a result of high inflation and the sharp devaluation of the currency due to
the Government’s economic mismanagement, neglect of the agriculture and livestock sectors, grand
corruption and disproportionately heavy expenditure on the military and security sector.

For the first time, even the Government of Sudan has acknowledged the existence of large-scale
corruption.

The Government cut fuel subsidies in its 2018 budget without providing any social welfare safety net
for the poor. The Government of Sudan is spending more than 70% of the national budget on war
and the security sector and only around 2% on health and education. Fifteen teachers were arrested
in June 2018 for protesting against the Governor’s plans to close two hundred schools in Gezira
state. Much of the health system in Khartoum state has been privatised, putting health services out
of reach of the poor. That is why ending war and democratic transformation is essential to put an
end to Sudan’s crisis and direct resources to serve the needs of its people.

Dams, displacement and cultural destruction

Since 2002, the Government of Sudan has embarked on a series of dam projects on the Nile without
prior consultation with the elected leaders of the affected communities. One of them, the Merowe
dam, which was completed in 2009, has displaced more than 60,000 people from their ancestral
lands on the edge of the Nile to desert locations. More than 120 villages have been flooded. 75% of
the displaced communities have not been adequately compensated or resettled. There are three
other dam projects in the pipeline – the Dal, Kajbar and Shereik dams. These projects have been
accompanied by human rights violations by government security forces, including the killing of three
people and the injury of 40 others in protests against the building of the Merowe dam and the killing
of four and wounding of 15 others in protests in June 2007 over the planned Kajbar dam, which
would submerge 90 villages. In both incidents, perpetrators of the attacks have not been
prosecuted to date. The four resettlement projects in the desert for the communities displaced from
the Merowe dam have failed because of lack of water for irrigation. The displaced communities now
face extreme poverty.

The tragic incident in which 22 Sudanese school children and a health worker drowned in the Nile on
15 August 2018 was a result of the Government’s policy of ignoring the rights of local communities
in its dam construction programme. These children all came from the Manaseer community who
were forcibly displaced by construction of the Merowe dam and were denied local schools and other
basic services if they refused to move to resettlement areas in the desert.

The Government of Sudan also continues to undermine the rights of ethnic and cultural
communities by pursuing a policy of Arabisation and Islamisation in education, cultural life and state
media. The flooding caused by the Aswan High Dam and more recently the Merowe Dam, has not
only caused mass displacement but has also flooded important archaeological sites. The
Government of Sudan’s plans for further dam construction would flood further sites and destroy the
central areas of the ancient Kushite and Nubian civilisations in Sudan.

Land grabbing

The Government of Sudan continues to grant new long-term leases over community lands to
investors, both national and international, without consulting local populations or obtaining their
consent. As a result, smallholders and pastoralists have been evicted from their lands and lost their
access to natural resources in favour of private investors, land speculators and other commercial
interests linked to the regime. The problem is particularly acute in Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile,
the Northern and River Nile states and Eastern Sudan.

RECOMMENDATIONS

In the light of the evidence above, it is clear that the human rights situation in Sudan is deteriorating.
In the absence of accountability and effective legal mechanisms for redress, it cannot be improved
through capacity building and technical assistance as provided for in the 2017 resolution under
agenda item 10. As long as General Bashir is wanted by the ICC, it is difficult to understand how
anybody could call for Sudan to be put anywhere other than under item 4.
The Sudan Call would urge the the Human Rights Council in its 39th session to adopt a resolution
to:

• Strengthen the special procedure mandate on Sudan by appointing a Special Rapporteur

on the human rights situation in Sudan under item 4 with a mandate to monitor, verify
and publicly report on violations of human rights and international humanitarian law in all
• parts of Sudan.
• Bring the human rights situation in Sudan to the Council in every session, not just once a
year
• Reject any suggestion that the time has come for Sudan to transition out of a special
procedures mandate.
• Call on the Government of Sudan to cooperate with the ICC and on the international
community not to allow General Bashir to undermine the Court and the system of
international criminal justice by constantly travelling abroad.
• Condemn attacks targeting civilians in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile, in particular
killings, burning of villages, looting and sexual violence committed by Government of
Sudan forces, paramilitary forces and allied militia which has led to further displacement
of civilian populations
• Urge the Government of Sudan to allow unfettered access by UNAMID, humanitarian
agencies and concerned NGOs to all parts of Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile.
• Urge the Government of Sudan to put an immediate end to the use of torture and other
inhumane and degrading treatment of political detainees, prisoners and Prisoners of War
• Call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained by NISS or other security
forces without charge or bring them to a court of law without delay so that they can
challenge the legality of their arrest and detention
• Call on the Government of Sudan to allow all political detainees, especially those in
detention centres run by NISS, to have immediate and regular access to their family
members, lawyers and essential medicines and medical care
• Demand the immediate cessation of any attempt by the Government of Sudan to amend
the Constitution to remove restrictions on term limits for the Presidential elections
• Condemn continued restrictions on freedom of the media, expression, association and
peaceful assembly
• Call on the Government to stop harassing and intimidating Sudanese citizens including
human rights defenders, activists, journalists and others, who seek to exercise their right
to freedom of expression, association and assembly
• Call on the Government to respect religious freedom and belief
• Call on the Government to end its policies of post and pre-print censorship
• Urge the Government of Sudan to repeal the repressive National Security Act of 2010 and
all other legislation that grants immunity and protection from prosecution to government
security officials and gives them carte blanche to commit human rights violations.
• Call on the Government to repeal the repressive Public Order Laws which have humiliated
Sudanese women for decades.
• Urge the Government of Sudan to abide by the Bill of Rights in its existing Interim National
Constitution and to fulfil the commitments it has already made as a party to international
human rights treaties
• Urge the Government of Sudan to implement the recommendations made to Sudan in the
2016 Universal Periodic Review and to provide a mid-term report to the Council on
concrete measures taken to implement those recommendations and the
recommendations made by the Independent Expert in his 2017 report.