Sudanese Baath Party member ‘tortured in detention’

The Cairo-based Arab Coalition for Sudan and El Karama Organisation have sent an urgent appeal to the work group on enforced or involuntary disappearance of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, regarding the condition of Babikir Mousa Eisa, who was detained more than three weeks ago.

Eisa, a prominent member of the Sudanese Baath Party, was held by agents of the National Intelligence and Security service (NISS) at his office in downtown Khartoum on 27 August and taken to an unknown detention centre, the two organisations said in a press statement on Sunday.

The statement said that his relatives have not been able to visit him. However, they learned from other detainees that he was tortured during his detention.

Two cadres of the Sudanese Congress Party (SCP), Fouad Osman and Mohamed Bashir, are being held since three weeks at the headquarters of the Sudanese security service near Shendi Station in Khartoum North.

Late August, a number of Baath Party and SCP leaders were detained by the NISS in Khartoum. They were held in semi-detention, which means that they have to report at the NISS office every day from the early morning until midnight.

The Baath Party began a campaign against the government that month, by writing slogans calling for the ending of the wars and a popular revolt on the walls of public institutions in the Sudanese capital. The SCP began a similar campaign last year by organising rallies against the ruling National Congress Party in public places in various parts of the country.