Sudan accelerates crackdown on political dissidents
After Abdelmoniem Rahma, a well-known Sudanese writer was imprisoned, his wife discovered she was pregnant. The baby girl was born and Rahma, whose family was not allowed contact, had no idea about the addition to their family of five.
Rahma was arrested in Blue Nile State in September 2011, shortly after the two Sudans separated. His arrest was part of a crackdown of members of the SPLM-N party, a political party turned armed movement.
Abdelmoniem Rahma
The poet was also co-founder of Ahjras Al-Hurriya, a newspaper that was shut down by the Sudanese government.
The series of arrests which proceeded secession has gathered pace in recent months. This year the outlook for freedom of expression in Sudan has deteriorated dramatically: Since June, repression has broadened, targeting other political parties, activists, journalists and members of youth groups challenging the regime.
Hafiz Mohamed, a political commentator affiliated with Justice Africa, an organisation working for peace and rights, says that political detentions are an ingrained part of the Sudanese system.
They are arbitrary arrests and are not linked to judiciary procedures. For that reason, a person can remain in detention without facing charges,” he told The Niles.
The crackdown has been unrelenting. Youth groups protesting for change are detained, activists are harassed, summoned for interrogations and their homes are searched. Journalists, meanwhile, have been banned from doing their jobs.
Mohamed Hassan Alim, a youth activist, was among those arrested during the protests about soaring food prices in mid-June, which social media activists dubbed the ‘sudan revolts’.
Security forces viewed Alim as a mobilizer and he was the first activist detained.
I was kept in solitary confinement until my release on August 16,” he explains. Their aim was to arrest and keep the ‘mobilizers’, the loud voices in the country, until the protests die out,” he says, adding that he would not have been released if the protests had continued.
Activists estimate the arrests total over 2,000, but there are no exact figures available.
Protests in Khartoum, June 22.
Despite the arrest of hundreds of members of opposition political groups, the parliament said in late July that there are no politicians in detentions”.
By mid-August, the media, starting with Sudan News Agency (SUNA), reported that over 2,000 prisoners will be freed in Khartoum. A few hours after the story was published, waves of detainees were freed, the last batch were freed a few hours before Eid, a Muslim holiday.
Those freed told stories of pain and suffering. Amel Habbani, a journalist and activist was seized from a protest in mid July says her sentence left her with lasting health problems. I was detained for two days before my release, I was deprived of sleep and forced to sit down on a chair facing the wall for hours,” explains Habbani who was among over fifteen journalists banned from writing for Sudanese newspapers.
Many female activists arrested in late June and early July were kept for weeks before their release, sending shockwaves around Sudan where, if arrested, women are not usually kept longer than a few hours to a few days.
Meanwhile, detention brought with it social stigma for the women. Only politically-conscious people understand the detentions, what do we tell the people around us who keep asking,” asks a sister of one of the former detainees who wished to remain anonymous, adding that the detention was hard for the socially conservative society to comprehend.
After the street protests were quashed, many of the political prisoners were freed. On the day Alim, the youth activist, was released, hundreds of others were released from prisons and detention buildings. Rahma was freed after nearly a year in detention to meet his daughter, who is a few months old, and find his children a few inches taller.
But despite the personal relief for those set free, human rights groups monitoring the scene do not expect the repression to ease anytime soon.
