Sudan’s state security prosecution summons former head of doctors’ committee
April 21, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – The state security prosecution office in Khartoum Thursday has summoned the former chairman of the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors (CCSD) and accused him of harming the health security by forming an illegal body.
CCSD is an independent doctors association that was formed during the doctors’ strike in October 2016 as a parallel body to the pro-government Sudanese Doctors Union (SDU).
In a statement extended to Sudan Tribune on Thursday night, the CCSD said the General Union of Medical and Health Professions and the SDU have filed charges against its former chairman Hassan Karar Mamoun.
“In an unsurprising move on Thursday morning, the former head of the CCSD was summoned by the state security prosecution and taken from doctors’ residence in Khartoum to the state security prosecution’s department of crimes against the state” read the statement.
The statement pointed that a large number of lawyers has volunteered to defend Mamoun and prove, saying the government has acknowledged the legality of the CCSD since the federal and state health ministries and the Vice President sat to with the committee to negotiate to end the doctors’ strike last year.
It added the doctors during their strike aimed to achieve professional demands that don’t pose any threat to the state security, pointing to the increased targeting of doctors through criminal charges recently.
The statement further accused the said the General Union of Medical and Health Professions and the SDU of seeking to criminalise the same people who they claim to be representing, describing the latter’s move as “disgrace”.
It is noteworthy that the Sudanese doctors in October 2016 went on a two-month intermittent strike and refused non-emergency treatments to patients to protest the poor working conditions, lack of medicines and lack of doctors protection after increasing attacks by frustrated patients and their families.
(ST)