No permit for celebration of International Women’s Day in Sudan’s capital

The Khartoum security service on Saturday prevented civil society organisations from celebrating the International Women’s Day. Speaking to Radio Dabanga, Fahima Abdel Hafeez, the Executive Director of Salma Women Organisation, reported that the civil society organisations did not get permission from the Khartoum security service to celebrate of the International Women’s Day on Saturday. The celebration would be held at the Nubian Club in Khartoum. “Since eight years Salma organises the celebration of the annual International Women’s Day in Khartoum on behalf of the Sudanese civil society organisations. All those years, we applied for the necessary permit and received it on time. This year, we requested an official permit on 19 February. The security apparatus, however, procrastinated until it was too late.” Abdel Hafeez said that the security forces also prevented tens of women and their families from staging a protest in front of the Nubian club against the ban on the celebration. She considers the ban on the celebration “a human rights violation and a negative message for women on the day dedicated to them”. The Sudanese civil society organisations annually celebrate the International Women’s Day with seminars and workshops, in synchrony with celebrations of the Women’s Day elsewhere in the world. File photo: Women at a workshop during the celebration of the African Human Rights Day in Darfur, 2013 (Albert González Farran/Unamid)