Security authorities in Khartoum yesterday prevented the Sudanese Cooperation for the Defence of Rights and Freedom and the Movement for Rights (MFR) from holding a press conference in Khartoum to discuss detainees in South Kordofan.
The Sudanese Cooperation’s chief, Farouk Mohammed Ibrahim, said that security forces cordoned off the movement’s office in Khartoum and blocked people from entering the hall.
“When we asked why we were prevented from entering the office, the security officers told us that government don’t want the press conference to be conducted,” Farouk stated.
He claimed that there was a large deployment of security forces around the office and along roads leading to the office. The conference, Farouk points out, was being held to discuss conditions of detainees in South Kordofan as well as to highlight that the group had complained on this matter to the authorities.
Just prior to the conference, the group of lawyers and human rights activists had lodged a complaint to the Sudanese Human Rights Commission in support of the detainees from South Kordofan. The detainees, they claimed, have been kept in prison without charge and are being denied visits from their relatives and lawyers, in breach of their human rights.
Dozens of people have been reported as detained by the Sudanese government without charge as a result of allegations linking them to the rebel groups SPLM-N or JEM in South Kordofan since fighting began in 2011. It has also been reported that some of these prisoners have died as a result of torture or mistreatment while in detention.
Photo: Khartoum