Amnesty calls on South Sudan to end arbitrary detentions
April 14, 2016 (JUBA) – Amnesty International, a global human rights body, has called on the government of South Sudan to end arbitrary detentions of its citizens, saying the world’s youngest nation must respect human rights of its people.
About 20 members of the armed opposition faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-IO) have been detained since Tuesday, beaten severely and kept in cells in the national security center in the capital, Juba.
The human rights organization further decried the ongoing prevailing human rights violations despite the August 2015 peace agreement to reform the security sector and respect human rights.
“The South Sudanese government must end arbitrary detentions by the intelligence agency under which dozens of men are being held in squalid conditions without charge or trial sometimes for months,” said Amnesty International days before opposition leader, Riek Machar, is due to return to the capital, Juba, as part of the peace deal requiring the parties to the conflict to form a national unity government.
Amnesty International has compiled a list of 35 men arbitrarily detained by the NSS at its headquarters in the Jebel neighbourhood of Juba. Some of the detainees have been held for close to two years, without access to lawyers and with very limited access to their families and the outside world, it said.
The list, published as part of a briefing entitled: ‘Denied Protection of the Law: National Security Service Detention in Juba, South Sudan’ also includes a former state governor, a 65-year-old university professor, a Ugandan aid worker and a journalist employed by UN-run Radio Miraya.
“These detainees lack access to adequate food, medical care and sanitary facilities. NSS have also beaten detainees, particularly in the days following their initial arrest,” said Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.
“Regardless of whether the unity government comes to pass, the authorities must ensure an end to these dark days of prolonged arbitrary detentions that violate both the South Sudanese Transitional Constitution and international law,” she added in the statement extended to Sudan Tribune.
Amnesty International believes there are other detainees in the NSS headquarters and that these 35 men represent only a small fraction of those currently under arbitrary detention due to their perceived political leanings.
“These detainees and others held without charge must immediately be released, or charged with a recognizable offence before a competent civilian court,” said Jackson.
She further stressed that the South Sudanese government should initiate prompt, effective and impartial investigations into NSS.
Besides providing for a government of national unity, the Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan (ARCSS), signed by the warring parties in August 2015, requires the parties to “ensure the immediate and unconditional release of … all those detained in connection with the conflict.”
However, Amnesty International lamented that even with indications that the unity government could be formed as soon as next week following Machar’s expected return to Juba, the human rights body continues to receive reports of further arbitrary arrests of dozens of people by the NSS in Juba.
(ST)