Sudan’s security services arrest civil society activist after flogging protest

December 18, 2010 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese authorities arrested a rights activist for hosting a meeting to prepare a demonstration against the brutal flogging of a woman by the police disclosed recently through a YouTube video.

Abdel-Basit Merghani, Director of Al-Fanar Center, a Khartoum based human rights advocacy group, is arrested by the Sudanese security service since the evening of Tuesday 14 December, multiples sources informed Sudan Tribune.

His detention took place twenty four hours after a protest organized last Monday by Sudanese women and civil society organizations against the whipping of the Sudanese young woman in the video.

Abdel Basit was arrested after the interrogation of over forty women detained on Monday.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) and 2005 constitution provide to respect civil liberties and freedoms however the parties during the transitional period have neglected the democratization process and privileges instead focused on discussing issues related to oil, Abyei, border demarcation and referendum laws.

Rights activists demand the removal of the Public Order law and legal dispositions aiming to restrict women freedoms in Sudan they state that these mechanisms violate the constitution.

Commenting on last year trouser case against the journalist Lubna Hussein, the Regional Director of the Strategic Initiative on Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), Hala Alkarib, said “The public order regime expresses and enforces an ideology that considers that women should not have equal access to public and private freedoms—including the basic components of the right to liberty, security of person and fair trial”.

Security authorities denied Abdel Basit’s family from visiting him since his arrest, a right defender told Sudan Tribune.

(ST)