Sudan Democracy First urges international community not to compromise on HRs

On the occasion of the International Human Rights Day, the Sudan Democracy First Group (SDFG) called upon all Sudanese civil and political actors to “continue their peaceful resistance in order to gain their rights”.

In a press statement on Thursday, the SDFG further urged the international and regional community to refrain from any compromising with regard to human rights issues “in return for perceived but ultimately short-sighted political interests.

“The international and regional community, and its human rights bodies, must act in a way that shows the victims of atrocities in Sudan that they are listening to their suffering and are standing by them, not by their oppressors,” the Group stresses.

‘Appalling deterioration’

“The celebration of Human Rights Day this year comes at a time in Sudan when the human rights situation has witnessed an appalling deterioration,” the statement reads.

“Violations of rights and freedoms are rampant, a majority of them crimes committed by the state’s apparatus. These violations have been monitored and documented by independent national and international human rights organizations and reveal a grim picture of the human rights situation, including:

– Ongoing grievous violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law, including forced displacement; aerial bombardment; indiscriminate attacks on civilians; destruction of civilian buildings and areas such as homes, hospitals, markets, and places of worship. Increasing numbers of civilians are fleeing the “hell” created by the government’s offensive military campaigns and have sought safety in refugee camps and camps for the displaced.

– Denial of humanitarian access to hundreds of thousands of displaced people and war victims in Darfur, the Blue Nile, and South Kordofan/Nuba Mountains; obstruction of international and national aid organisations; the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) control of all humanitarian operations; the use of food as a tool for political blackmailing to achieve military gains.

– Torture; beatings; degrading treatment; arbitrary detention; forced disappearance; extrajudicial killings; summary executions of prisoners of war; mass rapes; sexual crimes; in particular by state authorities and pro-government militias.

– Deprivation of the Sudanese people’s civil and political rights including: restriction of freedoms of expression, press, assembly; the right to access information, including the right to organize politically and to travel; civil society organizations are banned and closed down; restrictions are also imposed on peaceful activities of political movements and parties, reducing even further the narrow margin of room for civil and political activities, accomplished through intimidation, threats, and political blackmailing.

– Systematic discrimination against religious minorities; restrictions on freedom of religion and beliefs; confiscation and closure of churches; detention of Christians and denial of the right to practice their religious rituals.

– Deliberate targeting of citizens on the basis of their ethnic or regional origins by NISS agents, as well as the propagation by the government of a discourse of hate and discrimination against students from Darfur and the other areas affected by war.

– Increase in poverty rates and the denial of basic economic rights by government bodies: as many as six million Sudanese are facing a lack of access to food, exacerbated by deterioration in provision of services in other areas such as education, health and the provision of clean water.

– Ongoing and systematic discrimination and oppression of women, including use of acts of sexual violence to humiliate Sudanese women as a conflict tool.

– Impunity of government officials, including the refusal to enforce international and regional resolutions concerning accountability and compensation to the victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Think tank

The SDFG was formed as an umbrella group of leading Sudanese independent and democratic civil society and media actors to serve as a think tank and venue for indigenous research, analysis and advocacy on human rights, development, peace and democratic transformation in the country.

The Group is committed to support efforts for the restoration of basic freedoms in Sudan and the abrogation of laws that undermine such freedoms. The SDFG “stands firmly behind calls for the lifting of the government restrictions on humanitarian access to the war zones, as well efforts to bring justice to the victims of war and oppression and to achieve a just peace and democratic change in Sudan”.