Sudan detains rights activist, no charges
KHARTOUM, Jan 25 (Reuters) – Sudanese security officials have detained a prominent rights activist for the second time in 14 months, his wife and Sudanese rights organisations said on Tuesday.
Mudawi Ibrahim Adam was taken early on Monday morning from his village in the western region of Kordofan, near Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, and has not been charged, they said.
In December 2003 Adam was arrested and charged with crimes against the state for his work promoting human rights in the war-torn west. All charges against him were eventually dropped.
“They came to his home and arrested him … We don’t know why or where he has been taken,” said his wife Sabah Mohamed Adam, a leading journalist at the opposition daily al-Ayyam, which has been closed down several times for its reporting on Darfur.
The Sudanese Organisation Against Torture (SOAT) said it believed his arrest was solely because of his activities in defending human rights. It expressed concern for his safety.
Adam is the chairman of the Sudan Social Development Organisation, which has been organising human rights workshops in Darfur and given aid to some of the almost 2 million people who have fled their homes during the two-year-old rebellion.
“Because of its humanitarian activities, it has become a particular target for the security forces,” SOAT said in a statement. “SOAT … calls on the government of Sudan to put an end to the harassment and detention of human rights activists.”
The United Nations says aid agencies in Darfur have been complaining of arrests and harassment of both Sudanese and international staff in recent weeks.
The detention of Adam, and a friend who was visiting him at the time of his arrest, came a day before a U.N. commission reports to the United Nations on its investigation into whether genocide has occurred in Darfur.
After years of tribal conflict in remote Darfur, two main rebel groups took up arms in early 2003 accusing the government of neglect and of arming Arab militias, known locally as Janjaweed, to loot and burn non-Arab villages.
Khartoum says it armed some militias to fight the rebels but denies any links to the Janjaweed, calling them outlaws. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting.