Urgent Appeal: Muhnad Umar and Hazim Khalifa

Contact: Osman Hummaida, Executive Director at
Phone: +44-2032872745
E-mail: osman@acjps.org

(7 December 2009) On 6 December at 7 PM, two students, Muhnad Umar and Hazim Khalifa, from the Music and Drama Institute were approached by security forces at Al Salaam Park near Il Fitihab Bridge in Omdurman. The two students had been distributing fliers for Grifna, a campaign for free elections. The security forces chased the two students, firing shots into the air in order to force them to stop. When the students stopped they were arrested. Their instruments, a flute and a bass guitar, were smashed.

One of the students, Mr. Khalifa, was beaten with the butt of a rifle by security agents and was knocked unconscious at the scene. They were then taken to NISS offices near the railway station in Khartoum where they remain in custody without access to lawyers or family. The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies fears that they have been subjected to torture.

Available information indicates that these students were targeted for no other reason than that they were attempting to peacefully express their political opinion. The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies calls on the government of Sudan to respect the provisions of Article 39(1) of the Sudan Interim National Constitution, which provides that every “citizen shall have an unrestricted right to the freedom of expression, reception and dissemination of information”. The government should immediately release these students unless they can be charged with an internationally recognised criminal offence. At a minimum, the students should be given access to their lawyers and families.

Background

Grifna, meaning “we are fed up”, is an election campaign started by youth activists on Facebook. It now has more than 2,000 Facebook members and claims to have recruited thousands of others across the country who are not online. It is a nationwide movement which is calling for an end to NCP hegemony and free and fair elections. The movement has adopted orange as its signature color in reference to their peaceful methods for promoting change.