Press Releases

Sunday: January 9, 2005

Toward a Successful Transitional Rule
Free Human Rights Federation; Independent Judicial Commissions;
and Socio-Economic Development versus Presidential Dictates and Security Spending

The Sudan Human Rights Organization Cairo Office congratulates the People of Sudan in the South and in the North, the Mother Continent of Africa, and the whole International Community with the signing of the Naivasha Peace Agreements, which completed a historic formal ending of the North-South disasters of war by internationally-recognized treaty guarantees aimed to satisfy the yearning of our people for the achievement of the just peace, the sustainable development, and the regular democracy.

In this grand occasion, SHRO-Cairo hopes that the two Peace Partners, the National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, would successfully accomplish the peace obligations conferred upon them by agreement, and the promise they both pledged to promote the Naivasha Accords to a nationally recognized consensus that should extend, on equal terms, the just and permanent peace, power sharing, and participation in national decision making to the other marginal regions, especially Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, Eastern Sudan, and the Northern Provinces as well.

The Organization reiterates the grave national, regional, and international concerns for the worsening conditions of the displaced people of Darfur and the escalated violence in the region; henceforth, the possibility of “taking a swift action” in the words of the United Nations Secretary General (January 8, 2005) to redress the situation. At this point, SHRO-Cairo emphasizes the Sudanese Appeal to the World on the Human Crisis of Darfur, which held the Khartoum Government “squarely responsible for the crisis,” and calls upon the International Community to work closely with the People of Sudan to end the crisis via a national constitutional conference.

The Organization emphasizes, in particular, the urgent need to ensure non-discriminatory representation of all political parties and civil society groups in the next Committee on the Interim Constitution. Most importantly, the committee in question should exercise firm consideration of all international human rights charters and conventions, as well as the Sudanese legal heritage and social realities, to democratize, with the peace spirit of the Naivasha agreements, the repressive law arsenal of the government in order to ensure the full enjoyment of human rights and public freedoms to all citizens, irrespective of faith, political stand, social status, or any other discriminatory criteria.

Specifically, the Committee should carefully consider clear provisions by constitutional law for accountability of authority abuses, as well as principled abrogation of all forms of physical punishment in the criminal law; the provisions against women’s rights in the family law and other legal acts; the heavy taxation policies; the state-imposed unevenly distributed zakah [alms giving]; and the other authoritative orientations that have been inflicted upon the public by the State media and press in 15 consecutive years of anti-democratic rule.

SHRO-Cairo is deeply concerned about the powers bestowed on the President to establish judicial bodies and a national human rights commission in consultation with the First Vice President, according to the Implementation Modalities of the Protocol on Power sharing, as adopted by agreement. The Organization is seriously concerned for the possibilities of executive and legislative intrusions in the Interim Period against independence of the Judiciary in light of the government’s purge of judges and the other unresolved injustices of the Sudanese criminal justice system.

The Organization hopes the next South and North Interim Governments would strongly maintain the Independence of the Judiciary, as a cornerstone of democratic rule. Besides the need to implement laws based on international human rights laws and the best of Sudan laws, Sudan courts must be strictly independent from the Executive. The Judiciary should be fully allowable to select its own governing councils, as well as the management of its legal and administrative affairs by judicial jurisdiction, free of presidential dictates or legislative interference.

Because the full enjoyment of civil freedoms and human rights is the strongest guarantee of a lasting peace and effective rule of law all over the country, the Organization urges the governing partners of the National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement to act in the best interest of the Naivasha Peace Protocols to protect the untouchable right of civil society groups to establish their own Federation of Human Rights, as well as other human rights assemblies, free of any government intrusion or security orientation - let alone a presidential state-imposed commission - in accordance with the International Agreement on Civil and Political Rights to which Sudan is party.

SHRO-Cairo emphasizes further, the need to spend the oil wealth and other state revenues to increase the social and economic development of the Nation in order to fulfill the social and economic rights of people, as guaranteed by international norms. For this purpose, the already proposed enlarged military and security spending in the State Budget under the renewed emergency law should be effectively reduced.

Towards the achievement of this important end, the governing bodies of the country, as would be established according to the Accords, must reserve the largest share of the State financial resources in the post-conflict period for the necessary spending on social development (health, education, housing, and culture) programs side-by-side with the encouragement of local and foreign investments to generate the vital productive components of labor and employment, absorb the returnee citizens in decent conditions into their homelands, and reinstate the unfairly dismissed public service workers and/or employees throughout the last 15 years of anti-democratic rule to man, with the available working force, the Nation’s development in the Peace Era.