Mounting criticism against govt for crackdown after rebel attack

Fresh accusations of large-scale summary executions and arbitrary arrest have been levelled against Sudan’s government over its reaction to an attack by Darfur rebels on Khartoum in May - charges the government has rejected.

“It is estimated that at least 500 individuals from Darfur, both civilians and presumed JEM [Justice and Equality Movement] combatants, were summarily executed or extra-judicially killed in the three days that followed JEM’s attack against Omdurman on 10 May 2008,” the Darfur Relief and Documentation Centre (DRDC), an NGO based in Geneva, said in a report released mid-September.

The report also said that more than 4,000 people – mostly civilians with no ties to the rebel movement – were arbitrarily arrested after the attack on Omdurman, a city lying across the Nile from Khartoum.

According to DRDC, other aspects of the government riposte to the JEM assault included “enforced disappearance, inhumane and degrading treatment, ethnic profiling and racial insults and violence, discrimination, incommunicado detention, trial irregularities and judicial oppression, assault on freedom of movement as well as curtailment of freedom of the press and information.”

The DRDC report also accused the government of purposefully destroying or stealing property of the families of those it arrested. "This policy amounts to an economic war rendering life unbearable to the victims and their families especially when it is coupled with the arrest of the family's breadwinner."

The government denies the allegations and disputes the numbers.

State Minister of Information, Rabie Abdul Atti, told IRIN the arrests were necessary to diffuse the atmosphere of insecurity and terror created by the rebels.

"The arrests were not against Darfuris," he said. "The security authorities don't arrest anybody due to colour or tribe. If there is any arrest, it will be on the grounds of evidence."

Ibrahim’s* story

More than a month after the attack on Obdurman, Daoud Ibrahim* was sitting in his home in a poor neighbourhood of Khartoum. It was midnight. Suddenly, he said, national security forces were in his home, searching him and the others he lived with. They did not find anything, but took one person away.  Two days later, they came back, again in the middle of the night. Ibrahim's hands were tied behind his back and his head bowed down – he could not see who or how many there were. "Of course, I was scared," Ibrahim told IRIN. "They could kill us. At midnight, they could take us away. No one would know. They could throw us in the Nile." I brahim and eight others were taken to a jail in Al-Bahry, a suburb of Khartoum, where 80 or 90 other Darfuris were also being held, Ibrahim said. He showed scars on his back which he said were the result of a beating that night. They were pushed up against a wall and beaten, he said, pointing to scars on his back. One detainee needed surgery as a result of his torture, he added. "They asked, 'Where are you from? What is your tribe? Where do you live? Why are you here?...Are you involved with the rebels?'... Then they beat you and beat you, for more than an hour," Ibrahim said. "If anyone made a sound, they beat us. They beat us for three consecutive days." Ibrahim was released, but now lives in fear. "Especially after the [rebel] attack, I am scared every day. At any moment, they could come take me away again. If anyone comes to visit the house, the same night, a government car will show up at my door. They will ask, 'Who was he? Where did he come from? Where does he work?' They know every single person from Darfur who lives in this neighbourhood. They know where he lives, they harass him, and they take him to jail so that he can't talk, can't say a single thing. "We have become accustomed to this harassment. We can't say anything. We have no freedom of speech. "But I am speaking out because I want you to know. I want the world to know what is happening... Maybe it will bring protection for the people of Darfur." * Daoud Ibrahim is a pseudonym

He confirmed that hundreds of people were arrested following the attack – some of them relatives of rebels or people who gave them shelter – but insisted 90 percent were released immediately because of insufficient evidence against them.

Abdul Atti said the only people still in custody were the 50 or so who have been charged and are now on trial. In late July, Sudanese courts sentenced 30 men to death for their roles in the attack following trials that were highly criticised for not meeting international standards.

“Those are the only executions to speak of,” Abdul Atti said, “and even they have yet to go through the appeals process and be approved by the president. Anyone who claims to have been tortured in jail can take his case to court.”

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also denounced the government reaction to the JEM assault which they too alleged included arbitrary arrests and summary executions.

And in her report to the United Nations Human Rights Council in September, Sima Samar, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan, said the government's response after the 10 May attack "entailed serious violations of civil and political rights."

"At the end of July, two and a half months after the attacks, some 500 were feared to still be in NISS [National Intelligence and Security Services] detention, their whereabouts unknown, and the authorities had provided no specific information on those in detention to relatives or human rights workers," Samar’s report added.

The government has dismissed Samar's claims, calling her an agent of the European Union who wants to distort Khartoum's image.

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