SHRO-Cairo Reports
MEMORANDUM
ON THE SITUATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN SUDAN
AND SUDANESE SEEKING POLITICAL ASYLUM
IN EUROPEAN STATES
TO: EUROPEAN STATES AND THE INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY
DATE: May 30, 2000
SUBJECT: Memorandum on the Situation of Human Rights in
Sudan and Sudanese Seeking Political Asylum in European States
Throughout the most recent months of the years 1999/2000,
Sudanese nationals applying for political asylum in the United Kingdom
and other European States have been subjected to negative response by
the authorities concerned, irrespective of the suffering they had to face
before reaching out the country of destination or the fear they suffered
and still are passing through for their lives.
Because the reasons thus far obtained from correspondence with Sudanese
involved or through reports concerning the rejection of Sudanese applicants
by European States, the Sudan
Human Rights Organization Cairo Branch (SHRO-Cairo) cordially
appeals to all European States to reconsider the decisions they might
have negatively taken to reject many cases that, in actual fact, deserve
positive consideration in light of these facts:
1) Sudan Government still is a war-monger striving for military victory
over opposition forces:
Related to the Djibouti Declaration that which touched upon the need to
expedite peace negotiations instead of acts of war, in addition to government
cease-fire announcements, some European States adopted an approach encouraging
the return of Sudanese seekers of refuge in their territories to Sudan.
Many applicants were rejected regardless of the merits of each case that
warranted a careful consideration in accordance with international norms.
The truth of the matter is that, despite of the cease-fire declaration
that was mutually exercised between government and opposition forces,
Sudan Government never ceased the pursuit for a military triumph over
opposition forces through the bombardment of civilians, displacement of
indigenous population from the oil-fields' areas, and the destruction
of churches, mosques, and schools in Southern, Eastern, and Western Sudan.
Moreover, Sudan Government continued to pursue compulsory national service
by the forcible conscription security forces have been unrelentingly imposing
on students and other youth groups to join Peoples' Defense Forces (PDF)
irrespective of the right to conscientious objection that is fully recognized
by international law.
As SHRO-Cairo (1998) comprehensive study on the conditions of conscription
in the PDF’s training camps documented, many youngsters, especially
at the Ailafoun Camp, were brutally killed, tortured, or simply shipped
to fight in the war zones. Under these hardships, thousands of Sudanese,
men and women, young and elderly, made their way outside their homeland
"to enjoy the right to life and security of the person," the
very fundamental rights Sudan Government consistently violated against
their will.
2) Sudan Government has not abandoned the notorious Constitutional Decree
No. 2 and the Public Order Law or any of the other repressive instruments
that effectively curtailed the full enjoyment of public freedoms and human
rights:
The government has widely announced via intensive meetings with European
diplomats that the Constitutional Decrees previously issued by the June
military authority in 1989 were all canceled to allow a greater span of
public freedoms and the exercise of human rights. Nothing is far from
the truth.
The government’s assurances are only used for political
reasons as Constitutional Decree No. 2 still is effectively enforced by
head of state to kill and displace indigenous people in the oil-fields
areas, suppress public freedoms, arrest political opponents and human
rights activists, harass students and women, and prosecute trades unionists.
The Public Order Law 1996 has been forcibly applied to
persecute Sudanese women, in particular, together with the Personal Status
Law 1991 which is a flat violation of the International Agreement on the
Eradication of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women as well as many
important Islamic teachings that provide for women' rights.
The Public Order Law is used in conjunction with the Penal
Code 1991 to prohibit arts, songs, dances, and all other forms of free
expression as security forces recklessly intruded in marriage parties
and other social occasions to arrest women and flog them before their
families in a savage, distasteful, and dehumanizing way.
Sudan is currently ruled by a permanent state of emergency that is mechanically
extended by head of state whose ruling party is suffering irreconcilable
disputes that affected, in turn, according to official announcement by
head of state, the performance of government.
As actually materialized, the measures that head of state
has taken to insure public tranquillity within his single-candidate single-party
regime were meant to secure safety of the ruling faction in the first
place. The prevailing state of emergency has only contributed to the furtherance
of military actions in the war-affected areas and the persecution of political
opponents from among the democratic opposition.
With the continuous acts of war, displacement, and air bombardments in
the war-affected areas that brutalized thousands of citizens for no reason,
the re-establishment of a permanent state of emergency, and the unabated
policy of persecuting democratic opponents in cities and rural areas,
the influx of Sudanese seeking asylum over the border never stopped since
November 1999 when head of state started to promulgate measures for national
reconciliation to this very day.
3) Sudan Government continued beyond any doubt to commit
gross human rights violations all over the country:
As is clearly documented in the attachments of this Memorandum,
unabated violations included massive killings of the Massalit People in
Western Sudan, the Nuer and Dinka People of Southern Sudan, the Nuba of
Kordofan, and so many other killings and tortures of children, students,
and women.
The government resumed physical amputations under the
defunct system of Sudan judiciary and criminal justice. Many churches
and schools were bombarded as direct military targets with children and
teachers killed or gravely wounded and a full destruction of buildings.
Most recently, Sudan Government allowed the extra-judicial killing of
Riac Deng Gok and Kiir Dhiew by security forces. Air bombardments were
willfully exercised the result of which these children were brutally killed:
Ruza Dabiel, Munira Khamis, Randa Abualla, William Abualla, Maima Tutu,
Kaka Ali, Tabitha Hamdam, Francis Peter, Hamid Yousif, Hydar Osman, Kubi
Yousif, Bashir Ismail, Osman Rajab, Kuri Abdel Gadir.
Gassan Mohamed Ahmed Haroon, a young student unlawfully
conscripted and tortured to death in ghost houses, the kidnapping and
torture of another young student, Sara Farouq Kadoda, in daylight for
no reason, the arrest and torture of human rights activists Mustafa Abdel-Gadir,
Dr. Toby Madut, and Ghazi Suliman for exercising peaceful human rights
activities, the repeated unlawful arrest of opposition leader Sid-Ahmed
Al-Hussain, and so many other cases that are daily reported in national
and international media.
Even the political opponents released by head of state
from arbitrary detention or unfair imprisonment as decreed in November
1999 were soon re-arrested and repeatedly tortured by security forces
or curtailed from free movement across the country as they might wish.
Based on these facts, it is expedient that all European States receiving
Sudanese applicants for political asylum reconsider the decisions they
might have taken to reject these applicants. While SHRO-Cairo is hopeful
that European Democracies would continue to support Sudanese asylum in
Diaspora, we are gravely concerned that Sudan Government is actively pursuing
a treacherous move to deceive Europe and the whole International Community
via Sudan’s foreign affairs campaigns to convince with all bad faith
the countries of asylum to return Sudanese asylum seekers to Sudan.
SHRO-Cairo firmly believes on the basis of reliable reports that Sudan
Government is never willing to change the arrogant attitude it has been
consistently pursuing to reject all human rights reports. This irresponsible
attitude culminated in the total rejection of the sound report Amnesty
International submitted to the government to stop the horrible crimes
against humanity government troops and security forces are pursuing in
the oil-fields areas as well as other places.
The only purpose behind Sudan Government's public relations
campaign among European States, including the destructive falsification
of facts that the Sudanese European Committee (UK), in particular, has
been ruthlessly performing to save the ugly face and ill-practices of
the regime, is directed to beautify the image and status of government
that has been deservedly secluded as a result of gross human rights violations
committed by regime since June 1989 up to this day.
SHRO-Cairo believes that Sudan Government is only interested in the return
of Sudanese nationals seeking political asylum abroad to weaken the democratic
opposition by the immediate arrests and tortures awaiting these citizens
whenever they would return in the circumstances highlighted in this Memo
to pursue acts of war, compulsory conscription of young people, and to
strengthen security of the regime at all costs and expense.
We sincerely urge European States and the whole International
Community to exert all continental and international pressure on Sudan
Government to respect the Public Will of the People of Sudan to insure
the full enjoyment of human rights and the true observation of public
freedoms via a solemn and principled return to democracy and the rule
of law.
Sudan Government must immediately stop all acts of war,
ethnic cleansing and displacement of Sudan indigenous population.
We urge European States and the International Community
to require Sudan Government to stop all acts of terrorism, arbitrary arrest
and detention, and all tortures of citizens verbal or physical.
Sudan Government must cancel the Constitutional Decree
No. 2 and the Public Order Law to allow the free movement of all Sudanese
in and outside the country without any restriction.
Until the time that Sudan Government would truthfully and consistently
implement all these requirements with no treachery or any temporary gain,
SHRO-Cairo sincerely hopes that European States and the whole International
Community seriously attend to the cases of Sudanese applicants awaiting
approval of asylum in light of the prevailing state of affairs in Sudan
and the meaningless pursuit of war, security measures, state of emergency,
and the other repressive laws Sudan Government is shamelessly pursuing
against its own citizens.
Sincerely,
Mahgoub El-Tigani
President, SHRO-Cairo
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