Submitted by crinadmin on
[GENEVA, 28 November 2008] - Sudanese authorities routinely arrest and detain political dissidents illegally and subject many to mistreatment and torture, the top United Nations human rights official said on Friday. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said women, children and relatives of criminal suspects are also arbitrarily detained by Sudanese police, intelligence, and military forces. Such abuses of power violate both Sudanese and international law and virtually all go unpunished, according to her report, compiled by U.N. human rights officers deployed in the country. "Even blatantly unlawful arrests rarely result in criminal or disciplinary actions against the officials involved," said Pillay, a former International Criminal Court judge who took up the Geneva-based post in September. People detained by Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) are often subjected to ill-treatment and torture, and held in unofficial sites on an "incommunicado" basis with no access to lawyers, the 51-page report said. "Ill-treatment and torture are repeatedly used to intimidate detainees, to punish them, to extract information or to force them to incriminate themselves or others," it said. "In some cases death threats are made against detainees prior to their release to prevent them from speaking out about the abuses they suffered in detention." The report covers conditions in the capital Khartoum and across the country, but excludes the war-torn Darfur region which U.N. investigators have previously looked at separately. It raised particular concern about violations in southern Sudan, where civil war waged for two decades until a 2005 peace deal. Women and children in the southern region are often detained in relation to dowry and civil disputes, the report found, citing recent cases of a 17-year-old girl sentenced to a year in jail for leaving her husband, and a 16-year-old girl jailed for two months for running away from a forced marriage. Women are also regularly arrested throughout Sudan for wearing "indecent clothing", according to the report. It said an Eritrean woman and four Sudanese women were arrested in Khartoum on August 12 for wearing jeans or trousers, and were only released from police custody after signing a declaration that they would not wear such clothing again. In April alone, U.N. human rights officers were said to have found 33 children aged 12 or younger detained in jails across southern Sudan and in the central areas of Abeyi, Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile State. U.N. staff also witnessed three children being severely beaten with a horse whip at a Rumbek police station, it said. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said Sudan needs to ensure all detainees get full legal rights and end impunity for police and other officers engaging in arbitrary arrests and detentions. "The problems identified this report are serious but not intractable even bearing in mind that resources are limited as Sudan emerges from decades of conflict," it said. Sudan has previously denied allegations of indiscriminate arrests and ill-treatment of detainees. The U.N. report said the latest cases had been brought to the attention of Sudanese authorities who had "pointed to areas of disagreement and provided a number of constructive comments". [Source: Reuters] Further information