Second raid by security forces on training centre in Sudan’s capital

On Monday evening, a force of security agents raided the Tracks Training and Human Development Centre in downtown Khartoum, for the second time within a year.

Six staff members were briefly detained. They were summoned to appear the next day at the Khartoum State office of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), a visitor to the centre reported to Radio Dabanga.

The security officers confiscated all the computers and a number of paper files at the centre, the staff's private laptops, and their mobile telephones, he said.

On 26 March 2015, the centre was raided during a training session. Dozens of heavily armed security forces ordered the staff and the trainees to hand over their computers, laptops, and personal belongings.

During the past years, the Sudanese authorities closed a number of civil society organisations, among them the Sudan Social Development Organisation (Sudo) in 2009, the Sudanese Studies Centre, the Nuba Mountains-based Organisation for Human Rights and Development, El Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment and Human Development, which was Khartoum’s leading pro-democracy think-tank, and the Cultural Forum for Literary Criticism in 2012, the House of Arts and the Aslan English language teaching centre in 2013, the Centre for Civil Society Development, the Sudan Human Rights Monitor, founded by Dr Amin Mekki Madani, and Salmmah Women’s Resource Centre in 2014.

In January 2015, the Ministry of Culture cancelled the registration of the Mahmoud Mohamed Taha Centre in Omdurman, the National Civil Forum, and the Sudanese Writers’ Union, without citing reasons or relevant legislation.