Category: Judicial

Pope Francis, the head of the Anglican Communion and top Presbyterian minister together denounced the criminalization of homosexuality on Sunday and said gay people should be welcomed by their churches.

The three Christian leaders spoke out on LGBTQ rights during an unprecedented joint airborne news conference returning home from South Sudan, where they took part in a three-day ecumenical pilgrimage to try to nudge the young country’s peace process forward.

They were asked about Francis’ recent comments to The Associated Press, in which he declared that laws that criminalize gay people were “unjust” and that “being homosexual is not a crime.”

South Sudan is one of 67 countries that criminalizes homosexuality, 11 of them with the death penalty. LGBTQ advocates say even where such laws are not applied, they contribute to a climate of harassment, discrimination and violence.

Francis referred his Jan. 24 comments to the AP and repeated that such laws are “unjust.” He also repeated previous comments that parents should never throw their gay children out of the house.

“To condemn someone like this is a sin,” he said. “Criminalizing people with homosexual tendencies is an injustice.”

“People with homosexual tendencies are children of God. God Loves them. God accompanies them,” he added.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, recalled that LGBTQ rights were very much on the current agenda of the Church of England, and said he would quote the pope’s own words when the issue is discussed at the church’s upcoming General Synod.

“I wish I had spoken as eloquently and clearly as the pope. I entirely agree with every word he said,” Welby said.

Recently, the Church of England decided to allow blessings for same-sex civil marriages but said same-sex couples could not marry in its churches. The Vatican forbids both gay marriage and blessings for same-sex unions.

Welby told reporters that the issue of criminalization had been taken up at two previous Lambeth Conferences of the broader Anglican Communion, which includes churches in Africa and the Middle East where such anti-gay laws are most common and often enjoy support by conservative bishops.

The broader Lambeth Conference has come out twice opposing criminalization, “But it has not really changed many people’s minds,” Welby said.

The Rt. Rev. Iain Greenshields, the Presbyterian moderator of the Church of Scotland who also participated in the pilgrimage and news conference, offered an observation.

“There is nowhere in my reading of the four Gospels where I see Jesus turning anyone away,” he said. “There is nowhere in the four Gospels where I see anything other than Jesus expressing love to whomever he meets.

“And as Christians, that is the only expression that we can possibly give to any human being, in any circumstance.”

The Church of Scotland allows same-sex marriages. Catholic teaching holds that gay people must be treated with dignity and respect, but that homosexual acts are “intrinsically disordered.”

Source: Voice of America

According to the defence lawyer of Abdelraouf Abuzeid, who was sentenced to death in 2009 for the killing of USAID employees John Granville and Abdelrahman Abbas, Sudan’s Supreme Court based its decision to release him on “an interpretation of an agreement on retribution”.

Abdelraouf Abuzeid Mohamed Hamza was sentenced to death in 2009, together with three others, for their involvement in the murder of United States Agency for International Development staffer John Granville and his Sudanese driver Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama during the first hours of 2008.

He was released by the Supreme Court on Monday, after the Supreme Court circuit issued the decision by a vote of three to two, lawyer Adel Abdelghany told Radio Dabanga yesterday.

In a press statement on Wednesday, the USA expressed it deep concern over the release of Abuzeid, who “remains a Specially Designated Global Terrorist”.

The USA “are deeply troubled by the lack of transparency in the legal process that resulted in the release of the only individual remaining in custody and by the inaccurate assertion that the release was agreed to by the United States Government as part of the Sudanese government’s settlement of victims’ claims in connection with Sudan’s removal from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list in 2020. We will continue to seek clarity about this decision.”

The statement further said that the Department’s Rewards for Justice programme “has a current reward offer of up to $5 million for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Mohamed Makawi Ibrahim Mohamed or Abdelbasit Alhaj Alhassan Haj Hamad, two other individuals responsible for the murders [..]”.

Retribution

Lawyer Abdelghany told Radio Dabanga that the Supreme Court based its decision “on a free interpretation of an agreement between the Sudanese and US governments regarding the payment of two-and-a-half million Dollars to the family of John Granville.

“The Supreme Court, the highest judicial authority in Sudan, is authorised to interpret documents,” he explained. “The court considered the family’s acceptance of compensation as a waiver of retribution, and for this reason it brought the death sentence back to a prison sentence.

“The American side believes that the Sudanese government paid the amount as compensation for its negligence in its duties, not to waive retribution.”

The lawyer said that the decision of the Supreme Court is final. “The statement issued by the US State Department on January 31 considers Abuzeid a dangerous terrorist and hints that he falls within the US reward of $5 million for anyone who gives information that leads to the arrest of two other, fugitive men involved in the killing.

‘Changed‘

Journalist and expert in extremist Islamic groups El Hadi Mohamed El Amin told Radio Dabanga that Abuzeid has changed during his 15 years in prison. “Because he was neglected by the Islamists groups, he was a member of, his father died, and the conditions inside the prison were harsh, there was a time he reached a high degree of depression and attempted suicide.”

Mohamed El Amin expects that Abuzeid will not pose any danger anymore. “He has become a moderate Muslim now. Already in prison he began focusing on his future.”

Source: Radio Dabanga

The Supreme Court of Sudan has reportedly issued a decision to release Abdelraouf Abuzeid Mohamed Hamza, who was sentenced to death in 2009, together with three others, for their involvement in the murder of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) employees John Granville and his Sudanese driver Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama during the first hours of 2008.

Abdelmalik Abuzeid, Abdelraouf’s brother, wrote on his Facebook page on Monday: “My brother Abdelraouf is free by a decision of the Supreme Court”.

John Granville and Abdelrahman Abbas Rahama died in a hail of bullets in the early hours of January 1, 2008, when gunmen opened fire on their car as they left a New Year’s Eve party in the Sudan capital Khartoum. They were both employees of the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Four days after the murder, the Ansar Al Tawhid (Supporters of Monotheism) claimed responsibility via a post on a website used by Islamists. In September, five Sudanese men admitted their roles in the killing.

In June 2009, four suspects were sentenced to death by hanging. One year later, they broke out of Kober prison. A Sudanese police officer was killed during the escape. Hamza was recaptured three weeks later. Another was killed in Somalia in May 2011.The US government voiced its conviction that the convicts escaped their maximum-security prison ‘with inside help’.

Islamist militant Gusei El Jani was subsequently received a 12-year sentence for assisting the killers, but he was granted early release in April 2016, to which the US Embassy in Khartoum voiced it’s ‘concern’.

As reported by Radio Dabanga at the time, the US Department of State’s Rewards for Justice Program has authorised rewards of up to $5 million each for information leading to the capture of the two men still at-large, Abdelbasit El Haj, and Mohamed Mekkawi.

Source: Radio Dabanga

In a press statement yesterday, the Khartoum state police announced the arrest of the main suspect in the rape of the daughter of a political leader in the Sudanese capital on Friday.

The investigation team used forensics laboratories, sniffer dogs, and “modern technical means” to find the attackers.?They said they are continuing investigations under the supervision of the Public Prosecution and will eventually file an official complaint.

On Friday morning, the 15-year-old daughter of daughter of El Tayeb Osman, Secretary General of the suspended Empowerment Removal Committee (ERC*), was abducted from outside her family home in Khartoum. The assailants gang-raped her before leaving her in the street.

According to fellow ERC member?Salah Manaa, “the rape happened because her father works for the committee”. Osman, who was secretary general of the ERC*, frozen after the military coup in October 2021, recently participated in the preparatory workshops organised by the Sudanese Professionals Association on the future work of the ERC. In a tweet on Friday, he blamed affiliates of the dissolved National Congress Party, founded by ousted President Omar Al Bashir, as well as the Popular Security Forces.

Women’s groups, including the Sudanese Women’s Alliance, the Women Against Injustice Campaign, and the Northern Kandakaat Block, staged a protest vigil in front of the Public Prosecution Office in Khartoum on Sunday to condemn the rape. They are concerned about “this dangerous development,” in regard to the political process.

A number of political parties and groups also condemned the assault in a statement over the weekend, including the Sudanese Congress Party, the National Umma Party, the Communist Party of Sudan, the SPLM-N?Democratic Revolutionary Movement, the?Justice and Equality Movement, as well as civil society organisations and resistance committees.

In early November last year, affiliates of the former regime of Al Bashir violently confronted members of the Sudanese Bar Association (SBA) steering committee at the Lawyers House in Khartoum in an attempt to take over the premises after the Supreme Court had ordered the reinstatement of the unions from the Al Bashir era.

Source: Radio Dabanga

Sudanese anti-drug activists and civil society organisations denounced comments made by the Chairman of the Sovereignty Council, Lt Gen Abdelfattah El Burhan, where he accused “certain parties of distributing narcotics to young people, under the guise of spreading democracy”.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga’s Sudan Today programme, Tahani Abbas, a member of the No to Oppression Against Women Initiative, declared yesterday that El Burhan’s statements during his Tuesday meeting with various junta officials, “were an attempt to demonise civil society”.

Abbas went on to add that the military junta could use the rising drug epidemic as a pretext to justify “a clampdown on resistance committees”. The women’s initiative member affirmed the need for “qualified police that respect the rule of law”, explaining that cover-ups by the Sudanese police, “facilitated the import and selling of narcotics”.

Pointing to Egypt and South Africa, Abbas stated that Sudan should benefit from their experience in handling the recent rise in drug use, “unlike El Burhan’s current management of the situation without a clear plan”, she said.

Mustafa Adam, Director of the Sudanese NGO El Zargaa, also expressed his fears that the junta leader’s accusations could mean “more control and oppression of civil society organisations”.

He told Radio Dabanga, that the statements made earlier this week by the Sovereignty Council leader needed additional contextualisation before such comments could be levied at civil society organisations. According to the NGO director, El Burhan should “identify the accused organisations, freeze their work, and hold them accountable”.

The Governor of Khartoum, Ahmed Osman Hamza, said in a press statement following the meeting with El Burhan, that they discussed “the causes and factors of the rapidly increased drug outbreak” in the country. Also stating that an “intensive campaign will be organised to reduce the supply of local and imported drugs”.

Corruption

Due to the weak border controls and tense internal conditions in Sudan, the drugs trade has found an easy way to enter the country, social researcher Mohamed Adlan said.

Bordering seven countries, with often porous borders, Sudan has become an easy target for the smuggling of drugs, by air, over land, and, more and more, by sea.

Sudan’s 2021 report to the UN on the spread of drugs in the country for instance mentioned that the smuggling of heroin, which used to be confined to Sudanese airports, has shifted to Red Sea ports. Ships are being used more and more to smuggle large quantities of heroin into the country, the report said.

Other drugs were smuggled into Sudan over sea much earlier, whereby allegedly also officials were involved. A former member of the Sudanese Coast Guard in Port Sudan, capital of Red Sea state, told Radio Dabanga that his forces found four containers filled with pills and powder in 2013. “Apparently, it belonged to the son of an official, so we were asked to move the containers to Khartoum and hand over the investigation to the authorities there. We never heard something about the subject again.”

The officer, who worked at for the anti-drug unit in Abu Jubeiha in South Kordofan until 2011, added that it was not unusual to discover that government officials in Abu Jubeiha were responsible for the trade. “Many of the smugglers we caught would later be released following orders from the top.”

The former police officer confirmed that policemen, army officers, members of the Rapid Support Forces and former rebel fighters are among the drug traders. “They all trade and use themselves as well”, he claimed. “Every day, police all over Khartoum receive reports from the anti-drug units. They then seize the traders and their goods, but the confiscated drugs are often sold on again.”

Rebel groups are also involved in the trade of drugs. El Intibaha newspaper reported in July that a load of 1,000 Tramadol tablets of 225 milligrams was seized by customs officers at Khartoum International Airport in November last year. The bill of lading contained the name of the person to whom the goods were sent but the customs officers reported “an unknown person”.

According to El Intibaha, the load was manufactured in Mumbai, India. It was shipped to Israel, from where it was sent to South Sudan. The pills were then transported by Ethiopian Airlines to Khartoum.

The newspaper reported that months later, leaders of a rebel group submitted a letter to the customs department, demanding the deliverance of the load, as Tramadol is used by their members for “training purposes”. They were referred to court.

Source: Radio Dabanga

The remaining 95 West Darfur detainees, among them 15 minors, held in Port Sudan Prison resumed their hunger strike. Lawyer Nafeesa Hajar called on the international community to intervene instead of “ignoring the issue of the West Darfur detainees”.

Hajar, a member of the West and North Darfur Detainees Defence Team, accused the authorities of violating the law in a press conference at the Teiba Press hall in Khartoum on Monday.

She said that the director of Port Sudan Prison in end December prevented her and other members of the defence team from meeting the detainees “under the pretext of the prison regulations”.

This behaviour “violates laws, criminal procedures, the constitution, and binding international treaties,” she stated.

“The detainees have been held without charges by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and tried by the Governor of West Darfur, which confirms that the judiciary has abandoned its responsibilities,” the lawyer said, “This means a major setback in the cause for human rights.”

She called on the International Red Cross and UNICEF to stop ignoring the West Darfuri detainees, and intervene.

Defence team lawyer Rehab Mubarak commented at the press conference that “all prisons in Sudan have turned into detention centres”. By detaining people, the authorities pressure their relatives to stop their activism, she claimed, and referred to a number of other violations of laws and treaties, including detaining minors in public prisons.

Mubarak confirmed reports that about 50 West Darfuri prisoners were hidden from a UN mission visiting Port Sudan Prison in December. They were threatened with ill-treatment in the event they would continue their hunger strike.

‘Compound injustice’

In November, the Darfur Bar Association (DBA) announced that 350 West and North Darfuris were subjected to human rights violations as they were being held without legal justification in the Ardamata Prison in the West Darfur capital of El Geneina, the infamous Shala Prison in El Fasher, capital of North Darfur, the El Huda Prison in Omdurman, and the Port Sudan Prison in Red Sea state. Most of them were detained by paramilitaries of the RSF.

In August, the DBA and partners reported a mass detention campaign targeting tribal leaders and other activists, teachers, students, and farmers who refused to partake in RSF-led reconciliation efforts . Several people disappeared.

“All prisons in Sudan have turned into detention centres” – defence lawyer Rehab Mubarak

On December 11, the detainees in the various prisons embarked on a hunger strike. 57 detainees, among them minors, were released five days later.

Hajar told Radio Dabanga last week that the Port Sudan Prison administration promised to release the other West Darfuri detainees as well, whereupon they stopped their hunger strike.

When they were returned to their prison cells later that day, they understood that the administration had only ‘hidden’ them, because a delegation of human rights organisations was to visit the prison to inspect the conditions of the convicts.

Lawyers of the defence team who arrived at the Port Sudan Prison on December 29, were not allowed to see their clients. The prison director notified them that even their families are not permitted to visit them except with a letter from the authorities that detained them, which are the governor of West Darfur and the RSF Command.

“What is happening can be considered compound injustice,” Hajar said, referring to the combination of denial of a fair trial, preventing their families and lawyers from visiting them, and not allowing them to see doctors.

In a press statement on December 28, the defence team said that in addition to 95 people being held in Port Sudan Prison, 68 are still detained in Ardamata Prison in El Geneina, bringing the total number of West Darfuri illegal detainees in the country to 163. At least 17 people who were released from El Huda and Port Sudan prisons returned to El Geneina by land. Five others would follow, while those suffering from (chronic) diseases would remain in Khartoum for medical examinations.

22 months in prison

Former detainee Musab Ibrahim (16) from El Geneina, capital of West Darfur, told the press during the conference of the Darfur Detainees Defence Team in Khartoum on Monday that he was held in April 2021 by a force of the RSF while he was on his way to the market.

“They covered my face and beat me in the vehicle that took me to the El Geneina Police Station.” Ibrahim stayed in the police station for 20 days without investigation before he was transferred to the Ardamata Prison in the city, where he was notified that the governor sentenced him in absentia to one-year prison.

After nine months in Ardamata, he was transferred to El Huda Prison, where he was put in a cell with inmates sentenced to death, beaten, verbally abused, not allowed to see a doctor.

Ibrahim said that of the detained minors was mentally ill, while another was vomiting blood. “We then went on a hunger strike, which caused complications for eight of us, before I was released after spending 22 months in prison.”

Source: Radio Dabanga