Resistance Committee members beaten and humiliated as detentions continue

The detention campaign that has been carried out by the military since it staged a coup d'état on October 25 is still ongoing. Several more people were detained in the past few days, including doctors and minors.

The Socialist Doctors Association reported the detention of two medics of the Singa Teaching Hospital in Sennar yesterday. The detainees are Maan Mohamed Kheir, a psychologist, and Mohamed Omar, a nursing specialist.

The Resistance Committees of Abu Hajjar in Sennar reported that the Military Intelligence released three of its members, two days after their detention. On its Facebook page, the committee reported that the members were beaten and humiliated and that their hair was shaved whilst they were held inside detention cells of the 17th Infantry Division.

The Abu Hajjar Resistance Committees explained that Military Intelligence officers forced them to write a pledge not to engage in any political activity, not to go out to the street, and not to travel outside the state without the permission of the military authorities.

The heads of dozens of young men were shaved on the streets of Khartoum and other states, and some were beaten severely.

A group of lawyers submitted a memorandum to the National Commission for Human Rights to immediately release the more than 200 detainees held in the country following the October 25 dawn coup d’état.

The memorandum is addressed to several institutions, including UNITAMS and the European Union, and to the Prime Minister. It pointed to the arrest of ten minors aged 13 to 16 years, who were kept in the cells of the Mogran Public Order Police Department for three days.

In Zalingei, the capital of East Darfur, five minors are now being tried while seven other minors were tried together with adults and handed a suspended sentence of two months in prison in an Emergency Court in El Obeid.

Dozens, if not hundreds, of protesters were detained during yesterday's Marches of the Millions that took place one month after the military coup. The Police Forces, Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) were involved in dispersing the protests.

Sudan’s Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok had ordered the Sudanese police not to intervene in yesterday's mass demonstrations, and to initiate the release of all detained members of the resistance committees.

African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies

The African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) has been monitoring the detentions and stated yesterday that it received reliable information that Sudanese authorities have released of 101 political detainees in the days up until November 23. These included the political and media advisers of the Sudanese Prime Minister and 4 minors. Eight detainees were released after they contracted COVID-19.

These statistics do not include those detained or released after November 23, therefore not including yesterday's protests.

In their statement, the ACJPS welcomed the release of detainees but also expressed "deep concern for the continued arrest of peaceful protesters". It explained that "[j]oint forces of SAF, RSF, Military Intelligence and Police have continued to target individuals with arrests and incommunicado detention based on their participation or suspected involvement in the protests".

The centre explained that it had received information about peaceful protesters being detained, blindfolded, threatened, or verbally abused. "Similar tactics were used during crackdowns on the 2018-2019 revolution", the centre stated and it explained that "[t]he well-documented use by security agencies of torture and other forms of ill-treatment against detainees, particularly whilst held in unknown locations, raises safety concerns".

"Sudanese authorities have continued to use excessive force including firing of live ammunition to disperse peaceful protests around Sudan resulting in deaths and injuries of Sudanese citizens including minors. Both live and rubber bullets fired targeted the upper parts of the bodies of protesters", the ACJPS wrote. 

The centre also confirmed that it has received "reliable information of the involvement of un unidentified groups of individuals in plain uniforms and using Toyota pickup cars without number plates who have targeted protestors with force along side the Sudanese Armed Force (SAF), Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the police force".