‘JEM detainees being tortured in Sudan’s Kober prison’: relatives
Several relatives of 12 members of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) who are into their 10th day of a hunger strike at Khartoum’s Kober Federal Prison have told Radio Dabanga that the detainees are being subjected to torture. They are concerned about “the serious deterioration in the health situation of the 12 prisoners as a result of psychological and physical torture, in addition to their hunger strike.” As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, the JEM detainees began a hunger strike on 12 August, protesting what they described as “cruel treatment” by prison warders. The former head of JEM intelligence, Abdel Aziz Usher, and others have allegedly been moved to the death row solitary confinement block. “The tortures they are subjected to include electric shocks, gouging of nails, the application of pincers to sensitive areas of the body, as well as being burned.” As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, Sudanese courts sentenced about 70 JEM members, including Usher, to death after an attack they mounted on Khartoum in May 2008. None of the condemned rebels has been executed, but Khartoum has refused to free them within the framework of a goodwill agreement providing for exchange prisoners under the auspices of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur. Only a few were released under pressure from the mediation and Qatari government which facilitated the talks. The families demanded that the prison authorities cease the torture, and that the Sudanese government release the men immediately. The also renewed their appeal to the UN, humanitarian, and human rights organisations to put to pressure on the Sudanese government to release immediately the prisoners.Rebels release hostages The Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) announced on Wednesday the release of four members of the Popular Defence Forces who were captured during the battle for El Dalenj in South Kordofan last August. JEM secretary for Kordofan and the deputy president of the movement, Mohamed Al Beel Issa Zayyed, told Radio Dabanga that the government authorities refused to receive the four captives, noting that they were handed over to the Omda of the Hawazma tribe, Siddiq Hamid Siddiq. Zayyed added that that they “freed the four hostages in compliance with humanitarian and international conventions which take into account the rights and treatment of prisoners, despite the fact that JEM prisoners are being subjected to injustice and cruel treatment by Khartoum regime in the prisons”. The four prisoners released were the Battalion Commander Bishara Abdullah Abdulrahman, Sergeant Ahmed Hammad El Daoud, Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Shinto, and Sergeant Sherif Mohamed Eltaj Saleh. File photo ‘Sudan’s Director of Prisons talks tough to hunger strikers’: JEM (1 September 2013) Darfur rebels ‘release five captured SAF medics to Red Cross’ (26 August 2013)
Several relatives of 12 members of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) who are into their 10th day of a hunger strike at Khartoum’s Kober Federal Prison have told Radio Dabanga that the detainees are being subjected to torture.
They are concerned about “the serious deterioration in the health situation of the 12 prisoners as a result of psychological and physical torture, in addition to their hunger strike.”
As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, the JEM detainees began a hunger strike on 12 August, protesting what they described as “cruel treatment” by prison warders. The former head of JEM intelligence, Abdel Aziz Usher, and others have allegedly been moved to the death row solitary confinement block.
“The tortures they are subjected to include electric shocks, gouging of nails, the application of pincers to sensitive areas of the body, as well as being burned.”
As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, Sudanese courts sentenced about 70 JEM members, including Usher, to death after an attack they mounted on Khartoum in May 2008.
None of the condemned rebels has been executed, but Khartoum has refused to free them within the framework of a goodwill agreement providing for exchange prisoners under the auspices of the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur. Only a few were released under pressure from the mediation and Qatari government which facilitated the talks.
The families demanded that the prison authorities cease the torture, and that the Sudanese government release the men immediately. The also renewed their appeal to the UN, humanitarian, and human rights organisations to put to pressure on the Sudanese government to release immediately the prisoners.
Rebels release hostages
The Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) announced on Wednesday the release of four members of the Popular Defence Forces who were captured during the battle for El Dalenj in South Kordofan last August.
JEM secretary for Kordofan and the deputy president of the movement, Mohamed Al Beel Issa Zayyed, told Radio Dabanga that the government authorities refused to receive the four captives, noting that they were handed over to the Omda of the Hawazma tribe, Siddiq Hamid Siddiq.
Zayyed added that that they “freed the four hostages in compliance with humanitarian and international conventions which take into account the rights and treatment of prisoners, despite the fact that JEM prisoners are being subjected to injustice and cruel treatment by Khartoum regime in the prisons”.
The four prisoners released were the Battalion Commander Bishara Abdullah Abdulrahman, Sergeant Ahmed Hammad El Daoud, Ahmed Mohamed Ahmed Shinto, and Sergeant Sherif Mohamed Eltaj Saleh.
File photo
‘Sudan’s Director of Prisons talks tough to hunger strikers’: JEM (1 September 2013)
Darfur rebels ‘release five captured SAF medics to Red Cross’ (26 August 2013)
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