Sudan rights organization urges to enforce constitutional guarantees for the right to life

At the time national elections seem to be firmly under way, heinous murders continued to occur violating the fundamental right to life against the citizens of Darfur:

Government-supported militias attacked a camp of displaced citizens at Kass, killing civilians and pillaging and harassing victimized families. February 10th, student Mohamed Musa Bahradeen of the University of Khartoum, a political activist with the United People’s Front, was arbitrarily arrested. The next day, the student’s dead body was seen inside an abandoned building of a neighboring school. Neither the authorities, nor the university cared to inform his family and the public about this shocking murder, despite reliable information on his arrest by government authorities following an earlier dispute between the victim and NCP supporters in campus.

The most recent announcement of a presidential amnesty for the Darfuris accused of armed attacks on government forces in Omdurman (January 2009), and a further announcement by the same authority to eliminate death sentences on all citizens accused of political crime are late-coming promises. The commitment of the Government of Sudan to the humanitarian needs of the country to prohibit death sentences has been lingering behind at the expense of the due process of justice and the rule of law. State violence is not yet ended in Darfur or in Khartoum against Dafuris. Nor is harassment of the Darfuris displaced citizens in the camps or their students in college abated. Equally importantly, all government-supported militias and other wrong-doers have not been firmly prosecuted.

• The Sudan Human Rights Organization – Cairo condemns in the strongest terms possible the shameless aggressiveness by ruling elements against the Darfuri citizens and students.

• The Organization requires the competent authorities to conduct urgent judicial fact-finding investigations on the attacks and the murders of Darfuri citizens in Darfur and the National Capital;

• SHRO-Cairo calls on the United Nations, the US Government, and the African Union to convene promptly an All-Sudanese national conference on Darfur:

The proposed conference should provide full participation for all of the Darfuris’ civil society associations, political parties, and armed groups besides representatives of the existing Khartoum and Juba pre-elections’ governments, and the members of the Juba (September 2009) and the Tayba Azraq (October 2009) democratic conferences to prepare an Urgent Action Plan to enforce the constitutional rights guaranteed by the CPA and the Interim Constitution for the tranquility, national participation, and well-being of the citizens of Darfur.