UN rights report blasts Sudan intelligence service
November 28, 2008 (GENEVA) – The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) blasted the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) in a 51-page report released Friday.
“In Khartoum and other parts of Northern Sudan, the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) systematically use arbitrary arrest and detention against political dissidents,” said the report, which was compiled by UN human rights officers deployed in Southern Sudan, Abyei, Blue Nile State, Southern Kordofan, and Khartoum with the consent of government authorities.
According to Sudanese law, NISS agents acting without a warrant may arrest and hold someone for up to three days without informing a judge or prosecutor, and then the NISS Director General Salah Gosh can extend the detention for up to 60 days without ever informing a judge.
Amendments made to the National Security Forces Act in 2001 give Gosh the authority to detain suspects for up to six months without judicial review, and an additional three months if approved by the National Security Council.
During the reporting period, the NISS allegedly arrested women, children and relatives of criminal suspects, student political leaders, indecently dressed women, Darfuris in Khartoum, and persons opposing the Kajbar and Merowe hydropower projects, as well as journalists and lawyers investigating human rights abuses connected to these projects.
However, the report did not address Darfur and the authors were unable to access prisons in Khartoum and Roseris in Blue Nile, as well as unofficial places of detention in the Khartoum area.
The UN said that even “blatantly unlawful arrests” rarely result in criminal sanctions against the officials involved, “in particular with regard to arrests carried out by the NISS and the military.”
“A large number of NISS detention cases involving ill-treatment and torture have been reported to United Nations human rights officers over the past three years,” stated the rights paper.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay formerly served as a judge at the International Criminal Court in the Hague, until moving to the post in Geneva in September.
“In some cases death threats are made against detainees prior to their release to prevent them from speaking out about the abuses they suffered in detention,” said the report.
The UN monitors also cited violations by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, the ruling party of southern Sudan, which fought the NISS and the Khartoum government from 1983 until a peace deal was reached in 2005.
For instance, UN staff found 33 children aged 12 or younger in jails across Southern Sudan and the Three Areas during the month of April and they also witnessed three children attacked with a horse rider’s stick at a Rumbek police station.
(ST)