Sudan calls for ending the mandate of UN human rights expert
February 26, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese justice minister Mohamed Bushara Dousa said today that his country will seek to terminate the mandate of the independent expert appointed to monitor human rights conditions in the East African nation.
Dousa reiterated Sudan’s refusal of having a rights expert stressing that his country does not need any form of monitoring.
Mohamed Chande Othman, who is the UN rights investigator for Sudan, will see his term expiring next May unless he gets a renewal.
Othman, a justice on Tanzania’s court of appeals, had criticized Khartoum’s crackdown on political opposition leaders, journalists and students saying they represent “a serious setback”.
He has also called for a probe into militia attacks on civilians in Sudan’s western region of Darfur that took place last year.
Last December, he urged the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) to release eleven human rights activists and journalists arrested between 30 October and 3 November.
“The government has not specified the charges brought against them, provided them with access to legal counsel, or brought them before a judge to review the lawfulness of their detentions” he said.
Police violently dispersed dozens of small anti-government protests throughout the north this year and dozens of opposition party officials and activists remain in jail without charge.
Sudan’s allies on the UNHRC including Arab and Islamic countries have in the past for ending the expert’s mandate against the demands of U.S. and European countries.
(ST)