Sudan’s striking doctors campaign to free fellow detainees
November 9, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) announced on Tuesday they have initiated an intensive campaign, with the support of many groups, to pressure the authorities to free the detained doctors.
On 6 October, Sudanese doctors staged a strike and refused non-emergency treatments to patients to protest the poor working conditions, lack of medicines and protection of doctors after increasing attacks by frustrated patients and their families.
“We have set up an account via Twitter to launch a campaign with the support of Sudanese and international human rights activists and journalists to demand the release of detained doctors.” CCSD said in a press release.
They pointed that 11 doctors from CCSD and subcommittees have been detained by National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) since nine days.
According to the statement seen by Sudan Tribune, the detainees are: Hassan Karrar, Omer Ahmed Saleh, Hosam al-Amin, Mohammed Abdel Latif, Mohamed Mujtaba, Abdallah Qureshi, Jihad Abdel Moneim, Ahmed al-Abwaba, Mohamed Hilali, Seid Ganat and Ahmed Sheikh.”
The committee disclosed that NISS summoned on Tuesday other doctors and interrogated them “the number of doctors who have been summoned by NISS repeatedly reached 57,” it said.
On Tuesday, Amnesty International urged the Sudanese government to release ten doctors recently arrested and to halt security summons to the striking members of CCSD.
“The detained doctors are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment. The ten were part of a group of 29 doctors arrested then released without charge on 29 October,” Amnesty stressed.
However, the CCSD last Tuesday announced resumption of a two-day strike every week during November, saying the government didn’t honour its commitments.
On 13 October, the CCED called off the strike following government pledges to introduce a bill to the parliament to protect doctors, improve training conditions for registrars and improve work environment in hospitals.
(ST)