SUDAN: 38 organisations request UN attention on the on-going criminalisation of 10 defenders who may face death penalty
Paris-Geneva, 13 December 2016: 38 organisations co-signed a letter yesterday addressed to several United Nations (UN) Special Procedures regarding 10 staff members and affiliates of the Centre for Training and Human Development (TRACKs) in Sudan, who are accused, among other charges, of crimes against the State, which carry the death penalty, in two overlapping cases.
Among the human rights defenders accused, TRACKs Director Khalafalla al Afif Mukhtar, trainer Midhat Afif al-Deen Hamdan, and the director of Alzarqa Organisation for Rural Development, Mustafa Adam, have been arbitrarily detained for over six months. The letter calls upon the UN to urge the Government of Sudan to immediately and unconditionally release the three human rights defenders and drop all charges against them.
«The charges against TRACKs staff and affiliates are spurious and based solely on the peaceful exercise of their work in favour of human rights, democratic principles, and peace and security in Sudan» said our organisations. «The evidence presented is unconvincing as to how the human rights work of TRACKs staff and affiliates constitute crimes against the state».
In one of the cases, the defendants have been accused of being responsible for the International Criminal Court’s indictment against Sudanese President Omar al Bashir and the application of US sanctions against Sudan, despite both events took place years before the establishment of TRACKs in 2013. It has also been declared that TRACKs has been conducting work on behalf of, and has a fiscal relationship with, Al-Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment & Human Development (KACE), a pro-democracy organisation that also works to promote multiculturalism in Sudan, which was closed down by the Sudanese authorities in 2012 and subsequently registered in Kampala, Uganda.
The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (the Observatory) was created in 1997 by FIDH and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT). The objective of this programme is to intervene to prevent or remedy situations of repression against human rights defenders. FIDH and OMCT are both members of ProtectDefenders.eu, the European Union Human Rights Defenders Mechanism implemented by international civil society.
For more information, please contact:
• FIDH: Audrey Couprie / Arthur Manet: + 33 143552518
• OMCT: Chiara Cosentino: +41 228094937
Joint Open Letter to UN SPs on TRACKs in Sudan
5 pages / 137 KB
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