New appeal to Khartoum to release Sudan detainees

The family of detained lawyer Osman Hasan, secretary of the Communist Party of Sudan in North Kordofan has appealed to the authorities to release him. There are also calls for the release of Civil society activist Shamseldin Dawelbeit, who has been in detention for four weeks.

The family of Osman Hasan told Radio Dabanga from El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan, that state authorities have refused to allow them to visit their son who has been detained in Port Sudan prison since December 2018, and they have not been allowed contact with him.

The family appealed to the state authorities to release their son and appealed to human rights organisations to intervene urgently to release him.

Khartoum

Civil society activist Shamseldin Dawelbeit (62), director of the Democratic Thinking Project and the editor of the Sudanese Hadatha magazine, is being detained by the security services, since he was held four weeks ago. He was taken from his vehicle at El Soug El Arabi in downtown Khartoum by a security unit that monitors the activities of civil society organisations in Sudan.

He was then transferred to the NISS detention centre at Kober Prison in Khartoum North.

Abbas El Alam (70), a lecturer at the Sudan University of Science and Technology, is being held by the NISS for weeks as well.

The Communist Party of Sudan stressed in a press statement that “El Alam is now being tortured in security cells”.

Sit-in

Also in Khartoum, a representative of families of detainees said that on Thursday the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) refused to receive a memorandum demanding the release of detainees or bringing them to a fair trial.

El Waleed Bakri, the brother of the detainee Rabee Bakri, said dozens of families gathered at the NISS Information Office in Khartoum to hand over the memorandum, but the officials refused to receive it.

Bakri whose brother has been detained for three months, said the NISS refused the procedure and followed it by practicing terrorism against the families of the detainees by chasing them out from the information and citizens’ services building, confirming the absence of the minimum professional standard without any legal grounds.

Last Sunday, the families of the detainees held a second sit-in in front of the building of the security apparatus where they raised pictures of the detainees and signs calling for their release.