Eight Darfuri students released after five months in detention

Eight university students from Darfur have been released on bail by the Sudanese security apparatus after spending over five months in detention.

On Monday, the eight students were released after serving a period of five months and six days in detention camps of the Sudanese security apparatus – without being charged. They were among the students who organised and attended a mass speech for the United Popular Front (UPF) on September 13 last year.

During these mass speeches against the continued detentions of UPF members in Khartoum Bahri market, several Darfuri students were detained.

Lawyer Abdelbasit Mohamed told Radio Dabanga yesterday that during their detention, the eight students from Darfur were not allowed any visits from their families. “They were subjected to a variety of physical and psychological torture, together with humiliation and ill-treatment.”

Three weeks ago, the security service transferred the young men to the state security prosecution. “They have stayed there, without being charged with any offences, for 23 days.”

Abdelbasit said that the prosecution released them on Monday with a bail. In the event they breach the temrs of the bail, the guarantor must pay a fine SDG 100,000 ($5,506).

“The students committed themselves to appear before the prosecution when their case is transferred to the court.”

Political detainees

The defence of the eight students criticised the selective conditions on which they were released on bail, pointing out that days ago, President Omar Al Bashir publicly announced that political detainees in Sudan would be pardoned.

Abdelbasit Mohamed: “There is a group of political detainees still held in the security apparatus’ detention facilities in Khartoum, including Saleh Mahmoud, deputy chairman of the Darfur Bar Association, and a professor at El Gedaref University named Yasir Adam Eisa, and more.

“It is a trick used by the security service, to justify the violations of human rights […] by the release of a small group of detainees.”

Activists on online social networking websites published lists of the names of 94 political detainees who are still being held by the security apparatus, despite Al Bashir’s announcement to release them. Among them are three journalists who were detained during their coverage of the peaceful rallies against the sharp rise of prices of basic commodities in Sudan.