African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies ACJPS | المركز الافريقي لدراسات العدالة و السلام
(27 October 2022) African Center for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) expresses deep concern over the continued targeting of Sudanese citizens by authorities. ACJPS has documented an incident where a human rights defender, his colleagues and guests were arrested, and detained during an art exhibition. ACJPS calls upon Sudanese authorities to allow the enjoyment of freedom of expression, association and assembly, guaranteed in the Constitutional Charter and international treaties ratified by Sudan. We further call on authorities to put in place measures to ensure vague provisions in the Criminal Act are not used to violate basic human rights. The Sudanese authorities must also fasten legal and institutional reform to ensure an open space that respects freedom of expression, association and assembly.
On 20 October 2022, at 01:00 Pm, a group of Sudanese Federal Police arrived in five vehicles and raided an art gallery during an exhibition by Ahmed Esam held at Civil Lap house (NGO building) located in Alzhoor neighborhood, Khartoum. Mr. Ahmed is a 21 year old Human rights defender and an artist. During the raid, the police officers arrested nine guest majority of whom are young artists, and designers. They also confiscated 9 out of 12 art pieces and damaged one art piece in the process. Those arrested were taken to the federal Police office where they were detained until 06:00pm and later transferred to Northern Police Station located in Central Khartoum where they spent a night.
On 21 October 2022, the detainees were released on bond at 12:00am. They were charged with several offences including calling for opposition to authority by use of violence (article 63), disturbance of public peace (article 69) and public nuisance (article 77) of the Sudanese Penal Code 199, the complainant being a one Ibrahim Abbas Abdul Rahman. Although the detainees were released on bond, the police did not return their personal property such as cellphones confiscated during the arrest.
The exhibition was an expression of what Mr. Ahmed had experienced in detention together with group of artists in March 2022. They were detained for 55 days and while in detention he was subjected to verbal abused and torture and sustained broken fingers. He was also threatened with words like “we will leave disabled so that you stop printing”. Mr. Ahmed and other five artist were arrested while drawing pictures of Martyrs of Sudanese revolution on walls in main streets in March 2022.
Names of people arrested during the exhibition on 20th October 2022
- Mazin Mohamed Adam(m)
- Abdul Salam Hussien (m)
- Mohamed Abdul Aziz (m)
- Braah Mohamed Alzaki(f)
- Alam Eldien Ismail Mustafa (m)
- Mohamed Balah(m)
- Mai Esam Abdul Rahim(f)
- Adila Alhadi Alnoor (f)
- Asim Zurgan(m)
Names of artists arrested and detained in March 2022
- Ahmed Alsadiq
- Mohamed Ahmed Alnoor
- Mohamed Suleiman Alobid
- Maaz Alnaeem
- Mahmoud Ahmed
- Mohamed Alfatih Gareeb Allah
Background
After the fall of former military ruler Omer al-Bashir, there were hopes of an easier environment for CSOs in Sudan. However, these hopes were short lived because of the military coup in 2021 as CSOs and human rights have since been targeted by the current military regime. An example is Civil Lap, an organization of artists that create awareness and document human rights violations through art and this has made them a target by the regime. Several members of Civil Lap have arbitrary been arrested, tortured and imprisoned on baseless charges in a bid to repress the organization. In October 2020, five Sudanese artists were imprisoned on baseless charges.
