Sudanese police hold rights campaigners at AU summit

Jan 22, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese authorities detained more than 50 delegates from local and international human rights groups as they met on the sidelines of an African Union summit on Sunday, delegates at the meeting said.

“Towards the end of the meeting a group of security men came and demanded to see the agenda, the list of participants and our recommendations,” Osman Hummaida from the Sudanese Organisation Against Torture (SOAT) told Reuters from inside the building.

“Everyone is being detained and we have been asked not to talk on the phone. We have not been told why we are being held,” he said.

Representatives of international organisations Amnesty International, Anti-Slavery International, and the International Bar Association were amongst those being held, he added.

Sudan, a nation facing accusations of rights abuses, is hosting the AU summit for the first time and is trying to convince African heads of state to back its bid for the presidency of the continental body.

(Reuters)