AFR 54/040/2010

SUDAN

On 13 December, charges against human rights activist Abdelrahman Adam Abdelrahman and journalist Jaafar Alsabki Ibrahim were dropped following orders from the Sudanese Minister of Justice.

Darfuri activist Abdelrahman Adam Abdelrahman was arrested on 30 October 2010 and held incommunicado by the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) in Khartoum, Sudan. He was released on 4 December 2011. Abdelrahman Adam Abdelrahman is the deputy director of the Human Rights and Advocacy Network for Democracy (HAND), a coalition of grassroots Darfuri organizations that publishes human rights monitoring reports on Darfur. There were reports that he was subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment while in incommunicado detention.

Jaafar Alsabki Ibrahim, a Darfuri journalist working for the independent newspaper Al Sahafa, was arrested by the NISS on 3 November 2010 from Al Sahafa’s offices in Khartoum. He was released on bail in August 2011 during the festival of Eid, following an order from President Omar Al Bashir.

The arrests were part of a wave of arrests in October and November 2010 that targeted Darfuri journalists and human rights activists associated with Radio Dabanga, a Sudanese radio station registered in the Netherlands that broadcasts news on the situation in Darfur. Several detainees were released without charge after several months, while others remained in detention at undisclosed locations without access to their family or a lawyer. In June 2011, charges were brought against seven of the detainees.

On December 9, the Minister of Justice, Mohamed Bechara Dausa, decided to stop criminal proceedings related to Radio Dabanga and ordered the case against Abdelrahman Adam Abdelrahman, Jaafar Alsabki Ibrahim, and another defendant, to be closed. A week earlier the case against the four other detainees had already been closed.

On 13 December a judge acted on the ministerial order and dropped all charges against them. The case is now officially closed.

No further action is requested from the UA network. Many thanks to all who sent appeals.

This is the second update of UA 231/10. Further information: http://amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR54/038/2010/en

Name: Abdelrahman Adam Abdelrahman, Jaafar Alsabki Ibrahim

Gender m/f: both male