SHRO Quarterly

Muna Awad Khugali

The Sudanese Human Rights Quarterly, Issue No. 2, January 1996

The size of the audience participating in Amnesty campaign in collaboration with SHRO for the people of Sudan was not important. What actually counts was the nature and type of the participants as it is not useful in occasions like these to gather those who might have no interest in the subject matter of the campaign.

My relation with Amnesty goes back to mid 1990s, specifically after the killing of my brother [by NIF regime]. We established the Ramadan Martyrs’ Family Organization and have since subjected to much harassment by the ruling military authorities, including violence and arbitrary arrest.

The information collected on our activities and tortures was sent to Amnesty International which received them with care for they would soon be disseminated every where with petitions and appeals urging the ruling authorities to release political detainees and prisoners immediately from jail.

That relationship continued between us until my arrival to London in September 1992 when it took another form. That started with my visit to Amnesty Office in London during which I conveyed special information directly and made my address known to the office for further contacts. Most of the information centered on activities of the Martyrs’ Organization with which I retained close relations.

Before initiation of the Amnesty Campaign for Sudan, Amnesty asked me to participate in that campaign which came simultaneously with the AI Campaign for Indonesia. I did not hesitate a moment not to participate in the 6 month campaign (January 25 to the end of July 1995).

I was entrusted with the task of initiating the Campaign in Denmark – the first experience ever in my life for I never before addressed myself to an English audience. They asked me to tell my personal experience as an eyewitness of the human rights violations in Sudan. The interest of the audience in the humanitarian context of my story encouraged me to speak out fearlessly. The important thing in such situations is to answer what you know and to apologize if the question is not directly relevant to your cause.

On my return to London there was an open day organized by the AI group. They asked me once again to narrate my story. This time the audience was composed of journalists and volunteers working with AI or other humanitarian organizations.

My experience that was quite interesting to AI groups, as well as the other organizations, might not be equally interesting to the Sudanese people of whom hundreds passed through similar experiences. However, for my audience it was really incredible that a brother could be ruthlessly killed the way it had happened to the Ramadan martyrs in April 1990, or that some one would be arrested and detained for protesting against such atrocities.

My own experience proliferated into many other issues regarding the relationship between human rights violations and the Islamic religion. I was saying that what had been going on in Sudan had nothing to do with Islam, and that Islam had been abused by the ruling authority.

In the International Day of Women (March the 8th), I presented a paper on the violations committed against the women of Sudan. I referred to the women of the South and those of the war zones in the Nuba Mountains ad Western Sudan. I mentioned their sufferance from famine and disappearances, and their subjection to punishment or cruel tortures. As Amnesty said, women in Southern Sudan did not die by actions of the military government alone, but also by actions of the other warring parties.

My own personal experience led me to speak about ethnic cleansing and racial discrimination versus the people of the Nuba Mountains. Their churches were burnt to earth. Their women were taken captives, and their dignity was humiliated in the National Capital where they exercise no rights and many repressive laws are inflicted on them. The laws are authoritarian laws attributed to Islam to harass the women’s right to private dress or the use of perfumes, etc.

I have participated in about 20 presentations with AI in different cities inside and outside London. I did not reject any invitation despite many personal difficulties such as my life with my small daughter, all alone.

I believe that AI Campaign was very successful in unmasking the atrocities of the NIF regime. This success was clearly articulated in reactions of the regime itself.

At the beginning of the Campaign, Amnesty distributed a book with the title “Tears of the Orphans” that contained most of the violations committed by the regime. Amnesty also distributed papers with photographs documenting violations of the regime. But the Government of Sudan, as usual, claimed that it had been facing a campaign against Islam. The government claimed that the Tears of the Orphans included lies and invalid information and that Sudan lived in prosperity.

Even my personal experience of the government’s tortures was doubtfully received by representatives of the regime were attended the presentation. I confirmed that my experience was the legal basis that allowed my stay in London as a political refugee.

I asked them: Is it part of Islam to have people killed in the holy month of Ramadan, to prevent the martyrs’ families from burying them according to Islamic jurisprudence, to beat up the women and orphans and detain them in prison?

The government representatives answered, in cold blood, that if any thing of the sort might have happened, it would have been a mistake, simply!

Another question that was addressed to the representatives of the government about the prosperity they claimed in Sudan under their rule was:

How would they account for the continuity of war, the migration of hundreds of thousands of the Sudanese people, including thousands now living in the United Kingdom, millions in Egypt, and several thousands in Canada, America, and countries unknown before to the Sudanese refugees?

Reference was made by Amnesty to many other violations committed by the warring parties, other than the GoS, as Amnesty did not confine criticisms only to the government.

Subsequently, the Sudan Embassy security personnel subjected me to many threats. I did not care, however, for their threats because I am living in a country that respects the human rights of residents.

During the sixth commemoration of the “salvation government,” which meant for us a new anniversary of the Ramadan Martyrs, we organized with Amnesty a ceremony that was quite different from our ceremonies in Sudan.

We arranged a special forum and a rally to Sudan Embassy just about the closing date of the Amnesty Campaign. There were about 100 persons, yet, as already mentioned, the size of the participants is not important. Rather, the aim and meaningful message of the rally is the real value. We followed a mock funeral bearing decorated pictures of the martyrs by the Amnesty group.

The Embassy requested the authorities to organize a rally parallel to the Amnesty/Ramadan Martyrs’ rally, as the law provides equal chances for both parties to make rallies as long as discipline is maintained. The government supporters were only 20 persons who were chanting: “Allah is the Greatest!”

To conclude, I would say that my experience with AI successfully established close relations as well reliable sources of information about Sudanese people.

I believe that my work with Amnesty moved me away from the narrow circle of my former relations to a wider scope that enabled me to rethink the problem of Sudan as a whole.

I think that, the field of human rights is so great that I truly wish my own future would be closely connected with it.