Press Release

May 31, 2003

OBSTRCUTING THE SUDAN’S PEACE:
STATE TERRORISM, CIVIL WAR, AND RACISM

At the time peace negotiations are hopefully moving the Sudan into a better stage of national consensus, as has been recently ascertained by the Cairo Declaration of the Democratic Unionist, Umma, and SPLM parties (May 25, 2003) based on the NDA’s nationally-recognized agreements for the re-establishment of regular democracy and the permanent and just peace all over the country, the NIF terrorist rule continues to obstruct the peace process, being the sole beneficiary of state violence, terrorism, racism, arbitrary arrest, torture, and the regrettable policy of escalating armed conflict and civil war in the most impoverished regions of DarFur, as well the dehumanizing starving of the indigenous peoples of Upper Nile and Bahr al-Ghazal.

Added to this heinous record of human rights abuses and the crimes against humanity, the Sudan Government continues to obstruct the Sudan’s peace with the irresponsible rejection of the national identity of Khartoum, the capitol city of Sudan that has historically maintained a secular mode of administration before it was officially converted by the NIF military coup into an international center of terrorism and racism to serve the Muslim Brotherhood’s indoctrinating groups in gross violation of the country’s heritage and constitutional law and the international human rights norms. The peace-obstructing stand of the regime is clearly stated in the rejection of the Cairo Declaration by the presidential “peace adviser,” Ghazi Salah Eddin Atabani, as well as the other Muslim Brotherhood leaders.

The racism and acts of terrorism of the ruling regime is further extended to curtail the freedom of expression, press, and publication. Although practically suppressed by the notorious NIF’s coup decrees, the overruling power of the president, as press patron, over the established authorities of the government-controlled National Press Council virtually leaves no margin for the non-governmental journalists, publishing firms, or research centers to practice minimum standards of the freedom of expression. The Sudan Government security forces are equally empowered to arbitrarily arrest, detain and torture Sudanese journalists or ban their published materials to intimidate them with bankruptcy and other financial problems.

The Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Office is gravely concerned for the Sudan Government’s continuous obstructing of the peace process. The government continues to arrest the political opponents and the journalists who legally exercise the fundamental right of the freedom of expression in accordance with the law. The most recent arrest of the Umma party senior officials, Adam Mousa Madibbo and ‘Abd al-Rahman Dosa, and the harassment of al-Sahaffa Journal and her editorial team, including editor-in-chief Nuraddin Medani and his assistants in DarFur and Khartoum who have all criticized the Sudan Government’s repressive policies and practices in DarFur are mainly aimed to reverse the emerging climate of peace.

SHRO-Cairo condemns in the strongest terms possible all these acts of terrorism and the racist policy of the National Press Council and its collaboration with the security forces against the Khartoum Monitor, the country’s English journal. As is clearly stated in Acting-Editor-in-Chief Nhial Bol Akan’s Memo on suspension of the Khartoum Monitor Newspaper:

“On 12, April 2003, one of the Khartoum Monitor contributors was arrested by the security and a very senior officer insisted the National Security Organ is ready to assist us financially … the arrest of Edward was a pressure on us … The 6th of April 2003, I noticed that the security organ had already stepped in for pressure and the nature of my arrest was the first of its kind because I was arrested at odd hours when the official working hours were over and my journalistic immunity was not lifted through Journalists' Union. I was tortured severely as if as I was the one who wrote the article. I was made to stand in the water for five hours while facing the wall. Two policemen were insulting me, depicting me as a devil, anti-Islam when the paper was the one that published the article. I only represented the paper and the writer was Victor Ladu Darious. How then did I become a devil and what made these people to use abusive language when I was arrested simply because I represented the Monitor? … the security attitude towards Khartoum Monitor is very discriminative ... All the cases raised against the Khartoum Monitor are only aimed for pressure not more than that. The aim … is geared to impose more restrictions on the newspaper and this is a violation to freedom of expression and access to information … the recent fines and suspension against Khartoum Monitor and me were aimed to cause us financial losses and the security organ had succeeded in this … professionally the interference of the security organ in the press freedom is taking shape for the worst despite the lifting of censorship on us since 2002 … We believe all the cases against us are political ones intended to suppress our national role. We believe the courts are not fair in their decision and they are not neutral therefore such punishments are imposed … The current campaign against Monitor … is part of the historical intimidation aimed against the people of Southern Sudan … The judge ordered us to pay the fine of 15 million Sudanese pounds and he indicated that there was a court, which fined Khartoum Monitor in May 2000 … this was a great lie for the Monitor did not exist in May 2000. We started to work in September 2000.”

These egregious violations that the Sudan Government’s National Press Council, Security, and Courts have lawlessly exercised against the Khartoum Monitor are shamelessly racist acts of terrorism that should be nationally and internationally condemned and must be immediately stopped by the competent authority, by law.

• The Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Office urges the Sudan Government to live up to its national and international obligations towards the ongoing process of peace. These obligations include the maintenance and the development of the National Capitol of Sudan as a secular unit of state administration, independent from any theological contention, partisan plans, or political doctrine of any ruling or opposition group.
• The government must abandon all lawless security interference, intimidation, arrest, or torture that curtail the right of political opponents, writers, or journalists to exercise the freedom of expression, press, and publication.
• The Sudan Government must abrogate the existing Press Act and its repressive censorial organ, the National Press Council, which is regularly violating the Sudan best laws as well as international human rights norms on the freedom of expression in lawless collaboration with security forces and government-controlled courts.
• To sustain the ongoing process of peace, in accordance with the Machekos Peace Protocol, the Sudan Government must restrain its authority organs from all acts of state terrorism, civil war, racism or intimidation against the Sudanese People of DarFur and South Sudan.
• The government must seriously apply the right measures towards realization of the right of self-determination, which requires a consistent building of confidence between the Southerner Sudanese and their northerner partner, as well as a systematic realization of the climates of peace and the cessation of hostilities to strengthen the process of peace for the whole country.