Women to stage protests worldwide against rape in Darfur

Dec 9, 2006 (LONDON) — Protests are planned around the world against the mass rape of women and girls allegedly by Sudanese government soldiers and allied militiamen in Sudan’s western Darfur region.

“A terrible crime against humanity is taking place in Darfur and it is worsening by the week,” said Amir Osman, representing the Globe for Darfur, a coalition of activist groups, including London-based Amnesty International.

Coming on Human Rights Day, the appeal is part of a campaign by former and current world leaders, human rights activists and others to stop massacres and human rights abuses in Darfur that some say already amount to genocide.

“We’re now at a turning point,” Osman said in a statement.

“Either the international community can turn its words into actions and hold the government of Sudan accountable for its violations, or it can turn its back on the people of Darfur.

“Today thousands of people right across the globe will be saying, enough is enough — our governments must do more to end the mass rape and slaughter.”

Women will set off rape alarms and blow whistles in the protests at Sudanese embassies in London and other capitals. A rape victim from Darfur will join the protest in London to talk about her own suffering.

Activists said that even though troops and militiamen are using rape and sexual violence as a weapon, not a single person has been convicted of such a crime in the conflict.

Ireland’s former president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson and other prominent stateswomen called Saturday for the international community to deploy peacekeepers to Darfur to protect women there from rape.

Worried about the “appalling” human rights abuses, British Prime Minister Tony Blair appealed the same day to the Sudanese government and rebels to implement an immediate truce and seek a political solution to the conflict.

Blair pledged that Britain would continue to back agreements reached this year in Nigeria and Ethiopia on the deployment of United Nations and African Union peacekeepers to Darfur.

The Darfur conflict, which has been raging for more than three years, has claimed between 200,000 and 300,000 lives and displaced more than 2.4 million people.

In addition to Britain, protests are planned Sunday in Australia, Bahrain, Benin, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Ethiopia, France, Finland, Gambia, Germany, Ghana, Ireland, Italy, Kenya, Luxembourg, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, the Netherlands, Norway, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sierra Leone, Switzerland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, and the United States.

(AFP)

Please find below the links to two web clips for Sunday’s Day for Darfur, distributed by Amnesty International.

Salih Osman (video) – is a Sudanese MP and a human rights lawyer.
http://emedia.amnesty.org/sudan-051206-eng.ram

Jane Alao (audio) – is a psycho-social counsellor working in Darfur trying to help survivors of torture especially rape survivors.
http://emedia.amnesty.org/sudan-051206-eng-jane.ram

You will need to download the free realplayer software to play these clips. This can be found at http://www.real.com.
The clips are streamed for 56k, ISDN, Dual ISDN and broadband connections.