Press Release

Letter from the Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Office
To: the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights - Geneva

Date: 21 April 2004

Yours Excellency,

With this please find:

1. SHRO-Cairo Call on the Human Rights Commission and the African Commission
2. UNHRC Decision 5 (54) on the Sudan: Sudan. 19/03/99/A/54/18,para.21(5). (Decision)

The Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Office refers specifically to para 5 (on State party's role in the conflict that has erupted in Darfur), para. 7: (the Committee deep concern over reports from UNICEF that thousands of different ethnic origins have been enslaved). The Organization emphasizes, in particular, para 9 of the HRC Decision:

9. As a result, therefore, of the continuing human rights crisis, the Committee urges the State party to take the following steps to implement its treaty obligations under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination:

(a) To implement immediately effective measures to guarantee to all Sudanese, without distinction, freedom of religion, opinion, expression and association; the right to security of person and protection by the State against violence or bodily harm; the right to study and communicate in a chosen language; and the right to enjoy their own culture without interference;

(b) To respect its obligations under humanitarian law, particularly article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and customary international law applicable to internal armed conflicts;

(c) To ensure that its police and security forces, and any paramilitary or civil defence forces acting with the support of the Government or under Sudanese military command, respect human rights and humanitarian law, including the provisions of the Convention, and that all those responsible for violations of any of the obligations contained therein are brought to justice;

(d) To take effective steps to protect internally displaced communities within the territory of the State party and to address the problems associated with the displacement of significant segments of the country's population due to war. The State party should consider giving effect to the provisions of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement (E/CN.4/1998/53/Add.2) of the Special Representative of the Secretary General on internally displaced persons. In particular, the State party must recognize that all displaced persons have the right freely to return to their homes of origin under conditions of safety and that once returned all displaced persons have a right to have any property that was seized in the course of the conflict restored to them and to participate equally in public affairs upon their return;

(e) To implement a public education campaign urging tolerance with respect to ethnic, cultural and religious diversity.

10. The Committee welcomes the statement of the representative of the State party recognizing the right of the people of the south of the country to self-determination.

Your Excellency:

The Sudan Government has not complied with the clear decisions of the Commission. The Organization asks the Commission to act firmly towards the assurance of human rights in the DarFur Region, in particular, as well as the whole country as a whole. The Sudan Government must be firmly addressed with international human rights obligations: reinstating Human Rights’ Reporter activities besides disqualification for HRC membership are necessary measures to guarantee government respect to Sudanese human rights in DarFur or elsewhere.