Three TRACKS activists go free

The Criminal Court in Khartoum acquitted three affiliates of the Centre for Training and Human Development (TRACKS) on Thursday, and dropped the death penalty against two others. Against another activist of the training organisation the court filed charges that are punishable by death.

Arwa El Rabee, El Hassan Kheiri, and a female student from Cambodia collaborating with the Centre saw their charges dropped on Thursday. They were immediately released after a detention of several months.

The court dropped the charges carrying death penalty against the detained TRACKS Director Khalafallah El Afif Mukhtar and trainer Midhat Afifeldin Hamdan, while filing charges with the same magnitute against the detained affiliate and director of El Zargaa Organisation for Rural Development, Mustafa Adam.

The Criminal Court charged Afifeldin, Mukhtar, and Adam with reporting false news, among others. The security service has detained them in El Huda prison since 15 August.

It has been alleged that TRACKS has partnered up with the El Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment and Human Development (KACE), a pro-democracy NGO that also worked to promote multiculturalism in Sudan before it was closed by the authorities in 2012. Officers of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) raided the premises of TRACKS in downtown Khartoum in March 2015, and conducted a second raid in February 2016.

Last December organisations and individuals from Sudan and abroad sent an open letter to the United Nations Special Procedures in an attempt to urge the Government of Sudan to drop all charges against the ten staff members and affiliates, and stop the arbitrary detention of the three most prominent suspects.