Khartoum, Monday – Community Police beat up two women and a lawyer, the beating have been subjected to excessive violence by members of the Community Police in Khartoum. And the No to Women’s Oppression Initiative and the Sudanese Women Union respond with strong condemnation of the incident.
One of the women was injured on the face, while the other complained about a back injury. When members of the NHRC visited the victim in the Community Police station in El Deim neighbourhood in Khartoum. As reported in a press statement by The National Human Rights Commission.
However, the lawyer and member of No to Women’s Oppression Initiative El Fateh Hussein was released.
NHRC noted that they will contact all concerned parties “to prevent impunity and to confirm Sudan’s commitment to fulfilling the requirements of the Convention against Torture”, something recently ratified by the government.
The two women are likely to file a complaint.
The statement further stressed the need “to amend the contents of 1991 Criminal Law, and to bring them in line with international human rights conventions, in a manner that preserves dignity”.
Following his release on Monday evening, El Fateh Hussein said on his Facebook that he was “severely beaten on the head, face, and ears by members of the Community Police (the Public Order Police)”.
He said that he saw men wearing civilian clothes beating up a woman “in her forties” in El Mashtal street at about 12 pm on Monday.
He reproached the men, yet they took her and threw her “like a bag” in a van. Another woman was treated in the same way. The policemen then continued to beat the women with a hose and kick them. They then threw the lawyer in the van as well and punched him in the face and ears.
“They then took us to the office of the Public Order Police in El Deim, where they pushed the women towards the counter and entered me inside an office. I have been severely beaten again and denied a phone call.
‘The Sudanese woman has been subjected to violations of her dignity and humiliation over the past thirty hateful years. So don’t be silent anymore!’ – Sudanese Women Union
According to the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA), crimes of gender-based violence by Sudanese security and military forces continue to be the norm in the public and private spheres across the country. Gender-based violence by Sudanese security enforcement continues to be the norm in the public and private spheres across the country,” SIHA reported earlier this month.
