‘Sudan universities target Darfur students’: Bar assoc.

The Darfur Bar Association says that the administrations of Sudanese universities, which are manipulated by the security services, have been targeting (opposition) students in general and the Darfuri students in particular.

The statement by the Darfur Bar Association was issued on Wednesday after the Administrative Appeals Court in Khartoum Bahri postponed the hearing on the appeal filed by eight Darfuri students who were dismissed from El Zaeem El Azhari University following a sit-in in March.

The hearing was postponed as the university administration failed to attend the session. The Darfur lawyers cite this as “an intent to delay proceedings”.

“The Court of Appeal presided over by Judge Majdeldin Izzeldin, decided to postpone the next session to October 10 togive the university a last chance. The eight dismissed students were barred from entering the campus. Some of them had only two months left to graduate, so the dismissal puts their future at risk.

Solidarity

The Darfur Bar Association appealed to human rights activists, lawyers, and human rights organisations to be in solidarity with the students in their just appeal against El Zaeem Al El Azhari University.

“The university is practicing procrastination by exploiting litigation procedures to deprive the targeted students of continuing their university education, which is contrary to the objectives of the universities, the values of higher educational institutions, and good examples,” the statement concludes.

The Students’ defence lawyer, Yousif Adam Bashar, told Radio Dabanga this week that Wednesday’s session was to be procedural and intended to listen to the response of the legal counsel of the administration of El Zaeem El Azhari University on the filed appeals.

The defence asserts that the accountability sessions under which the dismissal of students held were illegal and did not meet the conditions that should be available and that they did not identify the violations committed by students.