In Sudan, the Sudanese authorities have since Sunday released 115 activists who have been detained for weeks in several prisons in the capital. These demonstrators, members of resistance committees or human rights defenders had been arrested during peaceful demonstrations against the October 25 coup or during night raids on their homes by the security forces.
From our correspondent in Khartoum, Elliott Brachet
They were detained without any charge being brought against them and without any legal procedure being respected according to several groups of lawyers.
The timing of these releases is questionable, since they coincide with the visit of the UN envoy for human rights who spent 5 days in Khartoum. The Senegalese Adama Dieng met during 5 days several Sudanese officials as well as civil society actors. He drew up this Thursday, February 24 at a press conference an assessment of his visit.
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The UN envoy considered that the recent releases of opponents was a positive sign but not yet sufficient. Adama Dieng will report in June on the repression of the protest movement which has already killed 82 people in just four months.
“ I have expressed my concerns to the authorities about the expanded powers that have been granted to the security forces under the state of emergencyhe said. This state of emergency has had a detrimental effect on human rights, with attacks on hospitals, harassment of journalists, arbitrary arrests and detentions of activists and cases of torture. »
A ” cover-up operation »
Adama Dieng to continue: “ I called on the Sudanese authorities to end the use of excessive violence against demonstrators, to lift the state of emergency, to release all activists still in detention, and to carry out impartial investigations into these human rights violations “.
Following these releases, the collectives of lawyers denounce a ” camouflage operation which aims to make believe that the jails of the regime are empty “, while dozens of detainees are still behind bars. In particular, there are political figures. Most of them come from the Dismantling Committee of Omar al-Bashir’s regime, which investigated before the coup the corruption of elites close to the deposed regime, and now gradually rehabilitated by General Burhane.