Sudanese, Arab organisations call for investigation of student attacks

The Darfur Bar Association, the Sudanese Communist Party, the Arab Coalition for Sudan, and the Arab Network for Media Crises have condemned the recent attacks on Darfuri students in Khartoum, and called for a fair and impartial investigation.

In a statement on Monday, the Darfur Bar Association (DBA) denounced “the regime’s hate campaign against Darfuri students”. They confirmed that they will provide legal aid to the detained students and those who intend to file complaints.  

The Bar offered condolences to the relatives of Mohamed Awad El Karim, head of the National Islamist Students Movement, the student wing of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP), who was killed at Sharg El Nil campus in Khartoum on Wednesday. According to Darfuri students who were having a meeting at the university, they were attacked by a group of about 150 militant NCP students, backed by university guards. In the ensuing clashes, Awad El Karim was killed, and seven students sustained serious injuries.

The Darfur lawyers stated that they expect the regime to continue taking the killing of the NCP student as a justification for further attacks against innocent Darfuri students, and warned that such an approach will push the students to extremism.

‘Culmination’

The Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) also issued a statement on Monday, condemning the threats by the NCP students to torch the homes of their fellow students from Darfur.

“The NCP students took the law into their own hands. They granted themselves the executive, administrative, judicial, and punitive powers of the courts and universities’ management,” SCP spokesman Yousef Hussein said in the statement.

He added that those threats and violent actions are not new to the NCP regime, but “a natural culmination of the fierce campaign, led by the security apparatus, against students from Darfur.

“The vicious attacks reflect the essence of a racist conspiracy creating a divide between the students by targeting Darfuri students, dishonouring them, and stripping them of their rights as citizens.”

The spokesman called on the “democratic students at the universities to raise a memorandum to the universities’ managements, and demand them to act and put an end to the criminal plot to exterminate the student movements”.

Ethnic diversity

The Arab Coalition for Sudan and the Arab Network for Media Crises, based in Egypt’s Cairo, condemned “in the strongest terms the violence and the systematic targeting of university students, in particular those from Darfur”.

In a joint statement on Monday, the organisations called for a “fair investigation into the killing of student Awad El Karim, and bring the perpetrators to justice”.

They demanded the release of all political detainees without condition, and called on the Sudanese authorities to halt the detentions on political and racial bases, and treat the detainees humanely.

Furthermore, the statement urged “all Sudanese human rights activists, politicians, and community leaders to confront the vicious campaign, which encourages racial discrimination within Sudanese community, known for its cultural and ethnic diversity”.