Sudan
This is a
critical time for Sudan. As stipulated
in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, a historic referendum on
self-determination for South Sudan took place in January 2011. A credible, peaceful, free and fair
referendum, the successful completion of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and
agreement on all the remaining outstanding issues such as citizenship,
delineating the border between North and South, international debt relief and
security can provide the basis for peaceful coexistence between North and South
Sudan. This has implications for human
rights in Sudan.
Overall
the human rights situation across Sudan remains grave. Although there has been some positive action such as the
passing of the Child Act, many of the obligations enshrined in the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement, such as the establishment of an independent
National Human Rights Commission, have yet to be acted on.
The Sudanese government’s participation
through the Advisory Council for Human Rights with the UN, and EU in human
rights dialogue and the establishment of the Darfur Human Rights Forum, are
welcome. However, this does not replace
the need for a genuinely independent national Human Rights Commission.
Although the Sudanese government has ratified
many of the international and regional human rights treaties, implementation
remains limited. Sudan has signed but
not ratified the UN Convention against Torture.
Sudan has refused to sign the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms
of Discrimination against Women citing concerns over its compatibility with
Sharia law and Sudanese tradition. The
government is still considering these treaties, and we have offered our full
support to help the government adhere to them.
We continue to have serious concerns about a
range of human rights issues including arbitrary arrests and detention; the
death penalty; Hudood punishments
(amputation, flogging and stoning); restrictions on freedom of expression,
association, assembly and movement; women’s rights; and a lack of justice and
accountability for serious crimes. The application of the
Public Order Act continues to result in Sudanese citizens suffering inhuman and
degrading treatment, as highlighted by the public flogging of a woman in
Khartoum by the public order police in December.
The Sudanese government continued to refuse
to cooperate with the International Criminal Court on the outstanding arrest
warrants for Governor Haroun, militia leader Mr Kushayb and President
Bashir. On 12 July, the International
Criminal Court added charges of genocide to the existing charges of crimes
against humanity and war crimes against President Bashir. As William Hague made clear during his visit
to the UN Security Council in November, we continue to urge the government of
Sudan to cooperate with the Court.
In Khartoum, our Embassy worked with other EU
missions to raise human rights issues.
At the request of the UK and others, the EU special representative met
with the Advisory Council in December to discuss the deteriorating human rights
situation in Sudan and some specific cases of the arrest and detention of
Sudanese citizens. A formal meeting
between the Advisory Council and EU Heads of Mission will take place in early
January 2011.
In September, and with
strong UK ministerial support, the UN Human Rights Council voted to extend the
mandate of the UN independent expert on the human rights situation in
Sudan. The renewal of the mandate ensured
that human rights in Sudan will continue to be internationally monitored.
We continued to raise human rights concerns
bilaterally through our Embassy in Khartoum and our office in Juba. Parliamentary
Under-Secretary of State Henry Bellingham and the Secretary of State for International
Development Andrew Mitchell visited Sudan in July and November
respectively. Both raised human rights
issues with senior members of the governments in North and South Sudan. William Hague also raised our concerns with
the Sudanese foreign minister, Ali Karti, in New York on 16 November.
Promoting human
rights in South Sudan is a huge challenge given the capacity-building
challenges. We have opened a new office in Juba that has
already strengthened our ability to provide diplomatic, development and
humanitarian assistance in the South. All-party constitutional discussions in the South
and a possible drive towards a robust multi-party democracy will help foster a
better environment for human rights. We
engage with the church organisations in South Sudan to encourage the government
of South Sudan to include civil society organisations and opposition parties in
the future development of South Sudan. We also work with the government
of South Sudan to ensure that the Sudan People’s Liberation Army is more
accountable for its actions and that the government is able to address the
continued threat of inter-tribal violence.
In the North, the government must build on
the small gains made in implementing legislation. Human rights forums must be improved to be
able to genuinely hold the government to account. Addressing the continued fighting and ongoing
human rights abuses in Darfur will remain a priority. We will continue to provide a substantial amount
of humanitarian assistance in Darfur to help improve the lives of the people,
but all parties must address the high levels of insecurity which are preventing
the full distribution of aid and assistance.
We will continue to work towards a comprehensive and inclusive peace
agreement for Darfur with the Sudanese government and representatives of the
Darfur armed movements, in support of the African Union/UN Joint Chief Mediator
Djbril Bassole and the Qatari government, who host the current mediation
process.
The future stability of North and South Sudan
is reliant on agreeing outstanding issues under the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement. Following the referendum on
Southern secession, held on 9–15 January, the people of North and South Sudan
will need reassurance that the gains promised under the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement will be fully realised and the freedoms and human rights of
Northerners and Southerners will be respected.
We continue to support President Mbeki’s work with the parties on
outstanding issues, particularly on debt and North/South border issues.
International monitoring and engagement will
be essential. We are discussing with the
Human Rights Council how human rights monitoring will continue once Sudan
divides into two countries in July 2011.
The independent expert is mandated to provide technical assistance to
both sides in Sudan and we will encourage the governments in the North and
South to engage with the independent expert in this regard.
Elections
Sudan’s
first elections in 24 years took place between 11 and 15 April. We provided £12.5
million for technical preparations, civic education and conflict management for
the elections through the UN Development Programme managed election fund. On 26 April, President Bashir was declared the
winner with 68.2% of the vote. President
Bashir won more than 90% of the vote in the North but only 13.7% in the South. Salva Kiir was elected president of South
Sudan with 93% of the vote against a National Congress Party-backed opponent.
In
assessing the five-day polling period from 11 to15 April, the EU Election
Observation Mission and the Carter Center welcomed the elections as a crucial
milestone in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement on the road to the
referendum. They commended the positive
engagement by Sudanese people; the dedication and commitment shown by polling staff
and domestic observers; the high participation of women; and the generally
peaceful conduct of the polling process, apart from some localised security
incidents in the South.
However,
they also highlighted a significant number of deficiencies and irregularities
and questioned the political impartiality of the National Election Commission. In most of the North, polling was generally
peaceful and orderly but there was also limited competition after the Sudan
People’s Liberation Army (Northern Sector), the Umma Party and some smaller
opposition parties decided to boycott the election. The Civil Society Network, which had 3,500
domestic observers in the North, cited irregularities including vote tampering
and ballot box security. In addition to
more than 7,000 official complaints lodged with the NEC, some 800 writs have
been lodged at the state level electoral courts and 25 with the Supreme Court
in Khartoum.
In
the South there were numerous reported incidents of the Sudan People’s
Liberation Army soldiers intimidating voters and independent candidates. There was also some localised conflict
between competing candidates and their supporters following the results
announcement. The Sudan People’s
Liberation Movement formed an inclusive government in Juba that accommodated
southern opposition parties, high profile independent candidates who came close
to winning, and senior Sudan People’s Liberation Movement figures who lost
their seats. This decision went some way
to calming tensions.
In
Darfur, there was limited participation because most internally displaced
persons were not registered to vote and those living in rebel-held areas were
also excluded from the process. The EU
Election Observation Mission decided to withdraw its observers from Darfur because
of the security situation. Carter Center
monitors remained on the ground but reported serious technical and procedural
violations in the limited areas to which they had access.
In
statements issued on 17 April, EU Chief Election Observer Veronique de Kaiser
and former US President Carter concluded that the elections had fallen short of
international standards for genuinely democratic elections.
While we were encouraged by the
relatively peaceful polling process, we made clear to both governments in the
North and South that we were seriously concerned by the allegations of
significant political and technical problems during the process.
Access to justice
Access to justice in South Sudan is compounded by
structural weakness in the state’s justice sector and capacity
constraints. Serious deficiencies in
justice sector institutions, including an ill-equipped and under-resourced
police force, inadequate prison facilities and the near absence of a basic rule
of law infrastructure beyond the major urban areas, continued to have a
negative impact.
Across South Sudan there is friction between the judiciary
and the traditional courts. The
functions of the judiciary are yet to be fully rolled out and an inconsistent
penal code means that there is a great variance in the application of the law.
The work of the South Sudan Human Rights Commission will
go some way to strengthening human rights understanding and the justice
infrastructure. Its main focus has been
human rights awareness campaigns, which targeted local community leaders. The Commission also published and
disseminated educational materials on human rights for the general public. The challenges faced by the Commission include
institutional capacity building, financial resource mobilisation and the ability
to reach out to and work with civil society organisations. We sponsored Dr Anei Arop, commissioner with
the South Sudan Human Rights Commission, to attend a course on implementing
human rights conventions at Nottingham University under the Chevening
Fellowship scheme.
In Darfur, the scarcity of law enforcement institutions,
including acute shortages of police personnel, judges and prosecutors, coupled
with the lack of material resources and training within the justice sector
institutions, put the formal justice sector beyond the reach of the vast
majority of people. Very few
perpetrators have been brought to trial for crimes committed during of the
conflict despite the government setting up various mechanisms to address
impunity.
We continue to urge the government of Sudan to address
issues of impunity in Darfur and have called for perpetrators of crimes to be
brought to trial.
Death penalty
On 14 January, six men accused of killing 13 policemen
during riots in a suburb of Khartoum in 2005 were executed, in spite of
concerns raised about the lack of due process.
The government claimed that the appeals process had been exhausted and
relatives of the accused failed to persuade the victims’ families to accept “blood
money” as an alternative. The executions
went ahead in spite of urgent appeals and a request for a stay of execution
from the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sudan and three
UN special rapporteurs. We have urged the Sudanese government to
establish a moratorium on the death penalty, with a view to its eventual
abolition.
Rule of law
The administration of justice in South Sudan remains
weak. The majority of the population
rely on traditional courts, which dispense justice through customary norms and
practices. However, the handling of
serious criminal offences by the traditional courts often leads to human rights
violations. Defendants appearing before
the traditional courts do not have legal representation and there is no appeals
process. The courts are presided over by
people with no legal background nor the skills to understand the constituent
elements of serious crimes. The
catalogue of human rights violations that occur in these courts include
imprisoning women for refusing a forced marriage.
Corruption within the government of South Sudan continues
to be a concern. When Mr Mitchell met Southern President Salva Kiir in Juba in November,
the president specifically asked for the UK’s support to develop a rigorous
anti-corruption policy and institutional framework that will extend across the
public service in the South. We are
working with the government of South Sudan to deliver this. No UK funds are channelled through the
government in either North or South Sudan.
Since 2008 we
have been running a criminal law reform project implemented by Redress, which
is due to finish in March 2011. The
project seeks to inform key decision makers, such as government officials,
parliamentarians, civil society representatives and legal professionals, of
international human rights standards and comparative experiences of legislative
reform elsewhere, with the aim of bringing Sudanese criminal law into line with
international standards.
Prisons and detention issues
The new National Security Act, which came
into force on 28 January, maintained wide discretionary powers of arrest and
detention for the National Security Service, in contravention of the Interim
National Constitution and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. Under the new law, the security service can
arrest and detain people for up to four-and-a-half months without judicial
review. It also maintains security service
members’ immunity from prosecution.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions mostly by
the security service and military intelligence continued to be of concern. The joint African Union/UN operation in
Darfur documented more than 30 cases of arbitrary arrests in May and June
alone. The government continued to hold
detainees for long periods without charge and has denied them the right to
challenge their detention in court.
During his visit to New York in November,
William Hague raised a number of specific cases of detention in Darfur with
Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti.
Human rights defenders
Human rights defenders continued to be persecuted in 2010. Thirteen Darfuri human rights defenders,
including Abdelrahman Mohamed Al Gasim of the Darfur Bar Association, and staff
members of the Human Rights and Advocacy Network for Democracy, HAND, a
Darfur-focused Sudanese NGO and Radio Dabanga, were detained in a wave of
arrests in Khartoum between 30 October and 3 November. No charges were brought against them.
On 22 December, Dr Mudawi Ibrahim Adam, the former director of the Sudan
Social Development Organisation and a prominent human rights defender, was sentenced
to one year in prison on embezzlement charges.
He had previously been acquitted of the charges in March 2009, which
immediately followed the organisation’s closure by the Humanitarian Aid
Commission. The Commission appealed the
judge’s acquittal of Dr Adam, but did not present any new evidence of
wrongdoing.
We and the EU raised these cases and others with the Advisory Council
for Human Rights in Sudan on 30 December.
We will continue to monitor them closely.
Freedom of expression
The April elections were blighted by serious flaws and allegations in
both the North and South of harassment, intimidation, arrests and
detentions. But civil society groups
were able to publish critical reports; opposition parties were granted access
to the media; and limited opposition rallies were allowed.
Since
the elections, however, these limited gains have been reversed. A number of independent newspapers have
experienced difficulties, including pre-publication censorship, closure, and
the arrest and intimidation of staff.
Ray Alshaab, the opposition Popular
Congress Party newspaper, was closed after the National Intelligence and
Security Service (NISS) claimed that the newspaper had published information
damaging to the country. Three of its journalists
were arrested on 17 May and a court case was ongoing at the end of December.
While
visits by NISS censors were again suspended in early August, newspapers have
subsequently reported new restrictive measures, including demands by the NISS
that journalists provide personal information including political affiliation,
tribe, and contact information for family and close friends.
William
Hague addressed issues of media harassment in a joint statement with US
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Støre
on 9 July, expressing concern “at the actions of the Sudanese authorities since
the election, which have further undermined civil and political rights,
including the arrest of opposition politicians, journalists and peaceful
protestors” and urged “national and local authorities in the north, south and
Abyei area to ensure a conducive political environment in the lead up to the
referenda.”
Recognising the
important role of the media in the referendum process, our Embassy provided
training for 30 journalists in December on responsible reporting of the
referendum.
Freedom of religion and belief
Non-Muslims in North Sudan continued to be charged
with offences under the Sharia-inspired Criminal Act despite the Comprehensive
Peace Agreement and the Interim Constitution stipulating the safeguarding of
the rights of non-Muslims in Northern Sudan.
For example, there were many arrests for inappropriate dress and
possession of alcohol. We called on the
Sudanese government to meet their responsibility to respect the rights of
non-Muslims and asked the Commission for the Rights of non-Muslims, established
under the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, to ensure that the necessary measures
and legal mechanisms were in place to protect these rights. The government
of Sudan and the government of South Sudan must take steps to ensure the
protection of minorities within their communities, and an early agreement on
citizenship issues would go some way to assuring those affected of their
safety.
Women’s rights
We continued to urge the Sudanese government
to sign the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination
against Women. We contributed to
programmes which have sought to engage women in the electoral process through
our £12.5 million of support to the elections.
The programmes supported awareness-raising of women’s rights; provided a
gender adviser to the National Elections Commission to promote gender-sensitive
policies and practices, and supported and encouraged women to put themselves
forward as candidates. We are supporting
the economic and social re-integration of women associated with armed conflict
through our £20 million contribution to the UN’s Integrated Disarmament,
Demobilisation and Re-integration programme.
We have also provided funding and assistance, through the Darfur–Darfur
Dialogue and Consultation, to engage women in the Darfur peace process.
Although reported cases of rape in Darfur and South Sudan
have reduced, this could be because women have been deterred from coming
forward because there were no powers to protect them or investigate claims. There were no women's shelters in South Sudan
so this further reduces the understanding of the prevalence of rape in South
Sudan. We are addressing these issues
with the UN mission in Sudan and with NGOs.
The African Union/UN Hybrid Operations in Darfur is helping to address
sexual and gender-based violence through the establishment of coordination and
analysis groups to improve the verification and reporting of cases. Henry Bellingham discussed
this issue with NGO representatives in October.
We are looking to establish a programme through African Conflict
Prevention Programme funding to provide training for African Union/UN Hybrid
Operation in Darfur officers to combat sexual and gender-based violence in
Darfur.
Children’s
rights
The Child Act
was passed by the National Assembly on 29 December 2009. The new law defines a child as anyone
who has not reached the age of 18 years and revokes “signs of maturity” as a
criterion for defining a child. It also
raises the age of criminal responsibility from seven to 12 years, criminalises
child exploitation and abuse, and establishes a comprehensive juvenile justice
system. Despite these positive reforms,
the Act failed to criminalise female genital mutilation. The government has established specialised
prosecutors for children, as well as child and family units as part of law
enforcement agencies in the country.
Minorities and other discriminated
groups
The issue of citizenship and the rights of South
Sudanese citizens living in Northern Sudan must be agreed by the parties to the
Comprehensive Peace Agreement as a matter of urgency to ensure that the rights
of Southerners living in the North are protected. This was one of the outstanding Comprehensive
Peace Agreement issues being discussed by the Sudanese parties under the
auspices of President Mbeki and the African Union High Implementation
Panel. We provided funding for the panel
through the EU Instrument for Stability.
We also provided technical assistance on other outstanding Comprehensive
Peace Agreement issues such as agreement of the border between North and South
and on debt. William Hague remained in
regular contact with President Mbeki and other Sudanese partners on these
issues throughout 2010.
Conflict
In Darfur, clashes between government forces and the armed movements as
well as inter-communal violence continued to cause
further deaths and displacement among the civilian population in 2010. Estimates suggest that there have been five
times as many deaths in Darfur in 2010 as there were in 2009. Humanitarian access was limited and continued
to be hampered by increased lawlessness and abductions of peacekeepers and aid
workers. The persistent climate of
impunity in the region remained the central driver of many acts of violence and
criminality. It is essential that the
government conducts thorough and timely investigations into these criminal acts
and ensures that perpetrators are promptly brought to justice.
A peace
settlement that addresses the root causes of the conflict is greatly needed for
Darfur. Since September 2008, the Darfur
peace talks in Doha have been at the centre of these efforts. We fully support these talks and have backed
this process both politically and financially.
The situation in South Sudan continued to be characterised by high
volatility in localised areas affecting civilian populations, especially women
and children, as well as increasing human
rights violations by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. Violence was further exacerbated by the
near-absence of functioning law-and-order mechanisms in many parts of the
region, and the widespread proliferation of arms and ammunition.
