SUDAN’S SECRET security service is carrying out a brutal campaign of torture and arbitrary detentions against government opponents, according to a new report by Amnesty International.
Amnesty’s Agents of Fear report throws light on a variety of torture methods used by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS). These include beating detainees while held upside down against a wall, electric shocks, whipping, sleep deprivation, kicking and stamping on detainees and beating them with water pipes.
The report also documents the arrest of at least 34 people, including journalists, human rights activists and students during the first half of 2010.
Women have also been harassed and intimidated by law enforcement agents and the NISS, and sexually assaulted while in their custody.
“The NISS rules Sudan by fear. The extensive, multipronged assault on the Sudanese people by the security services has left the critics of the government in constant fear of arrest, harassment or worse,” said Erwin van der Borght, Africa programme director at Amnesty.
“The Sudanese authorities are brutally silencing political opposition and human rights defenders in Sudan through violence and intimidation. NISS agents benefit from total impunity for the human rights violations they continue to commit.”
The Sudanese government criticised the methodology used to compile the report, as well as the fact that the information was gathered from May 2008, the same month Darfuri rebels attacked the capital Khartoum.
“I don’t know of any country in the world that wouldn’t carry out arrests and other legal proceedings after its capital was attacked,” said Badreldin Abdallah, deputy head of mission for the Sudanese government in Kenya. He said much of the information in the report was gathered from Uganda and Chad. “We cannot say we are ideal in our regard for human rights but we are a developing country. We face huge political, economic and social challenges, so you have to make a relative judgement, not an absolute one.”
The 2010 National Security Act, passed by the Sudanese National Assembly in December 2009, allowed for the arrest of any suspected person for a period not exceeding 30 days provided that their families were notified.
This was seen as a major breakthrough in Sudan, where incommunicado detention was the norm.
However, the Act also seems to exonerate members of the security services for their actions, with no oversight or accountability provided for in the legislation.