7-04-05, 9:04 am

The Sudanese Communist Party issued the following statement on the present situation in the Sudan, especially with regard to violations of human rights: The UN Commission on Human rights in Geneva has recently condemned the alarming human rights record of the Sudanese regime. Members of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) and other opposition forces are persecuted in the Sudan. The Sudanese regime continues to arm Arab militias known as the Janjaweed to the teeth to ransack the tribes of African ethnic origin in Darfur. Their properties and livestock have been looted, their villages burnt, women have been raped, and many murdered. The regime is launching a vicious military campaign against the people of African ethnic origin in Darfur and demonizes them as the fifth column of the resistance movements and enemies of the State. Darfur faces severe political unrest and is now a war zone. Recently the state of emergency is extended for another year. Darfur is witnessing ethnic cleansing and killing by the security agents of the regime and Arab militias. Five weeks ago, the President of the regime publicly declared that the regime would not retreat from its fundamentals of Jihad and Sharia. The whole country is under a state of emergency where the President rules by provisional orders and the security organs are not judicially accountable. All laws that violate the civil and political rights are still prevailing in the country. There is no rule of law and the judiciary is controlled by the government. The Islamic regime is escalating the civil war on religious and racial bases, calling it 'Jihad' – holy war. Students and young people are forcibly conscripted in camps for combat with inadequate training and are used as human shields. Due to all of these violations which are condemned by the international community, the UN Security Council has passed a resolution demanding the trial of people, including leading figures of the regime, suspected of crimes against humanity in Darfur in the International Criminal Court. It is due to the actions of the Sudanese government that violates international law that today the Sudan is actually a protectorate ruled by the UN security Council under the control of the US and its allies. The President of the regime is calling on Sudanese men to marry more than one wife to increase the number of Jihadists. The regime is instilling institutional violence where its security agents have a free hand against the opposition. Recently, the security forces detained briefly the Secretary General of the Sudanese Communist Party. Later, he was released. All opposition parties are still proscribed. For any fruitful dialogue leading to democratic changes all dictatorial laws must be abolished. The country is still ruled by a one party system. Detainees are not usually charged and are kept in preventive administrative detention. It is pertinent to mention that the Islamic Front controls the judiciary. According to the new amendment of the National Security Law, detainees are kept without judicial review for six months. It needs to underline that recently the so-called 'Uluma,' that is 'learned religious people,' who are agents of the regime, have proclaimed a 'fatwa' letting the blood of those who disapprove of the Islamic fundamentals of the regime including the 'jihad.' The regime, in spite of all its claims of openness, remains a monolithic partisan of fundamentalism that does not recognize the political, religious, cultural and ethnic diversity of the country. It claims an absolute monopoly of the religious truth and relies solely on oppression against its opponents. It has labeled some of them as apostates and heretics. This derogative and dangerous categorization has instilled an extreme and dangerous form of religious violence that can lead to very serious and alarming consequences. Members of the opposition who peacefully demonstrated in Portsudan were murdered in cold blood by security forces. The Sudanese regime, under international pressure, continues to pay mere lip service to the recognized minimum standards of human rights. All laws that violate civil and political rights are still in place and the country is under a state of emergency since 1989.

Contrary to the declarations of the Khartoum government, violations of human rights are a daily occurrence. We would like to reiterate that the present situation of human rights in the Sudan as a result of the military mobilization and other actions of the regime is very dangerous, in particular for communists and other members of the opposition.