Sudan: Awadia’s family demands retribution as officials apologize
March 7, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The family of a Sudanese woman killed by police this week has called for justice against the perpetrators as two government officials offered a verbal apology for the incident.
According to eye witnesses, she was killed after she came outside the house with fellow family members to break up a scuffle between the police and her brother who they accused of being drunk.
The incident sparked popular outrage and demonstrations the following day in Al-Deim and Al-Sahafah areas, where angry protesters attempted to attack POP stations before being forcibly dispersed by the police.
In the wake of the incident, the ministry of interior issued a widely derided statement saying the victim was killed when a police officer “fired three shots in the air.”
The statement also alleged that “drunk” members of the family’s victim assaulted the police and attempted to seize their weapons.
Ibrahim Mahmoud, the Sudanese minister of interior, and the Governor of Khartoum State, Abdel Rahman al-Khidir, paid a visit on Wednesday to the house of the victim’s family and offered a verbal apology for the incident, Sudan Tribune was told.
Al-Khidir criticized the ministry’s statement, saying it had failed to justify the police actions. The governor promised Awadia’s family that the police will issue a retraction in the coming hours in respect of the moral rights of the victim’s family and residents of the area.
He went on to tell the family that no one is above the law and that the ministry of interior had already formed a number of teams to investigate the incident and lift immunity of the perpetrators.
He concluded by expressing his regret over the incident and apologizing for the misfortune that befell the family and the area’s residents.
For his part, the minister of interior promised to resolve the issue within the realm of law and assured the family that justice will be dispensed.
The victim’s family provided the two officials with eye witnesses who confirmed that it was the police that started the assault. The witnesses also testified that the accusations in the police statement about the brother being caught drunk were false. The family demanded that they receive an official apology from the police and that the officer who killed Awadia be prosecuted.
Sudan Tribune has observed that local newspapers’ reports on the incident were slanted towards the police version and omitted to mention the family’s claims. Some journalists in Khartoum told Sudan Tribune that the papers had received orders from the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) to report the story only on the basis of the police’s statement.
“The implementation of the Public Order Laws in Sudan is often inconsistent and targeted on the basis of gender or political affiliation,” said a statement issued on Wednesday by the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS), a London-based group.
ACJPS also charged that the Public Order Law opens the door for men and women to “be punished without trial, by unfair standards, or without representation.”
The group’s statement also condemned the censorship practiced by the NISS and called on the government to “end the use of tactics designed to prevent media officials from reporting on issues the government deems sensitive.”
ACJPS called on the government of Sudan to investigate the incident and hold the perpetrators accountable for their actions.
The Strategic Initiative on Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), a Uganda-based group, noted the fact that the killing of Awadia happened on the eve of International Women Day, saying that her “murder serves as a harsh reminder of the vast struggle women still face in attaining dignity and human rights in Sudan and across the region.”
SIHA said that “the brutality of the Sudan Pubic Order Police against the women and girls of Sudan is part of an ongoing battle to impose a fundamentalist moral order upon society and women are frequently the first victims where their lives are devalued in relation to their male counterparts.”
“We are calling on the United Nation and its related organs, the African Union, members of the international community and women and human rights organizations to denounce this killing and demand the Government of Sudan address its impunity towards violence against women and to abolish all forms of discriminatory and degrading laws against women and girls” the statement concluded.
(ST)