HRW, Arab organisations urge Sudan to probe security attack on students

Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Arab Organisation for Human Rights (AOHR), and the Arab Coalition for Sudan (ACS), have demanded from the Sudanese authorities to urgently conduct an investigation into the violent eviction of 70 Darfuri women students from El Zahra boarding house in Khartoum on 5 October. In a press statement issued on Wednesday, the ACS strongly condemned the attack on the students.   “A joint force of police and security forces with support of the “notorious” Rapid Support Forces broke into the students’ residence in order to evacuate it […]. The use of sticks, batons and tear gas resulted in injuries among the students, while the security forces arrested more than 30 students, three of whom were released. [The Darfuri women students] reported that they have experienced brutal torture, sexual harassment, obscene and racial abuse by the security elements,” the statement reads. Discrimination The AOHR described the violence used against the students during the eviction and the detention of about 30 Darfuri women students by security forces a “flagrant violation of human rights and a clear case of discrimination”, in a press release issued on Tuesday. The Organisation called for the immediate release of the students, and called on the Independent Expert for Human Rights in Sudan, as well as the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education, to question the Sudanese authorities about the violations. Enforced disappearance HRW, in a statement released on Wednesday, also urged the Sudanese authorities to investigate the abuses, including sexual harassment, against the Darfuri students during the forcible eviction from El Zahra dormitory in Khartoum. According to HRW, there are 15 students still held without charges and without access to lawyers or family visit in Omdurman’s Women Prison, while the whereabouts of 20 others are unknown. “The unacknowledged detention of individuals or the concealment of the whereabouts or fate of those detained by state agents constitutes an enforced disappearance, which are absolutely prohibited under international law,” the international human rights organisation said. On Sunday, the government-backed General Union of Sudanese Students accused Darfur rebel movements and opposition parties of pushing the women students not to leave the boarding house, in order to “provoke chaos, inciting demonstrations and vandalism”. File photo: Darfuri students of the University of Khartoum stage a demonstration on 11 March this year, in protest against widespread attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by the NISS, on rural areas in Darfur. Security forces dispersed the students’ protest with tear gas and life ammunition. Student Ali Abakar Idris was killed. (Radio Dabanga correspondent) Related:Sudan’s lawyers demand Darfuri students’ release (15 October 2014) Accommodation offered to Darfuri students in Khartoum (15 October 2014) ‘Attack on Darfuri students requires investigation’ (12 October 2014) ‘El Intibaha story about students fabricated’: Darfur lawyers (9 October 2014) Women’s initiative condemns ‘racist attack’ on Darfuri students (9 October 2014) Darfuri students detained in Sudan’s capital (8 October 2014)