Persecution of Human Rights Defenders
In the period from 2003 to 2011, Mudawi Ibrahim Adam was repeatedly arrested for charges related to his human rights work with the group Sudan Social Development Organization. These arrests were protested by groups including Human Rights Watch, Front Line, and Amnesty International, the latter of whom named him a "prisoner of conscience."
On 5 March 2009, the same day that President Omar al-Bashir was indited by the ICC, the Sudanese government ordered the closure of SUDO, and its offices were taken over by state security forces. The New York Times reported that the letter closing the offices "came from the Humanitarian Affairs Commission, which is run by Ahmed Haroun, one of the people facing an arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court for mass slaughter in Darfur." The Sudanese government simultaneously expelled "the International Rescue Committee, Oxfam UK, CARE, Mercy Corps and the Dutch section of Doctors Without Borders. Mudawi and SUDO appealed their closure in court, winning the appeal in April 2010. However, according to a 2011 SUDO press release, the organization remains effectively closed: "in Sudan you can win a case but nothing changes. SUDO’s offices remained locked, its assets remained frozen, and the organization in Sudan was not allowed to resume operations."
Read more about this topic: Human Rights In Sudan
Famous quotes containing the words persecution, human, rights and/or defenders:
“That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages among some [people] and to their eternal Infamy the clergy can furnish their Quota of Imps for such business.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The end product of child raising is not only the child but the parents, who get to go through each stage of human development from the other side, and get to relive the experiences that shaped them, and get to rethink everything their parents taught them. The get, in effect, to reraise themselves and become their own person.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“[The Republican Party] consists of those who, believing in the doctrine that mankind are capable of governing themselves and hating hereditary power as an insult to the reason and an outrage to the rights of men, are naturally offended at every public measure that does not appeal to the understanding and to the general interest of the community.”
—James Madison (1751–1836)
“The nation which forgets its defenders will be itself forgotten.”
—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)