Arab Organisation for Human Rights in the UK (AOHR UK) condemned the Sudanese authorities’ extending the detention of the Sudanese dissident Dr. Mohamed Abdullah Al-Jazouli, head of the Sudanese State of Law and Development Party, who has been detained for nearly six months without a charge. The organisation described his detention as an arbitrary and repressive act, which is not in line with the principles of the Sudanese revolution and aims to silence its symbols
Arrest without a charge
Al-Jazouli was arrested on July 14, 2020, in front of his house in the Al-Riyadh neighborhood in Khartoum City by a group of 7 armed individuals affiliated with the Sudanese Military Intelligence. He was then sent to the General Intelligence Service then to the security police, where he remained in detention without a charge.
According to his office manager, “All news from Al-Jazouli was cut off for a whole week after his arrest, and all security services refused to admit his detention. After that the family received calls from the intelligence secretariat asking them to bring him food and clothes on a weekly basis, without allowing him to communicate with them or the lawyer. After two months of his detention his family was allowed for the first time to visit him inside the General Intelligence headquarter, while his lawyer’s requests to visit him were still being refused”.
“On December 08, 2020, he was transferred to Al-Hoda Prison after being interrogated by the security police in absence of a lawyer, in clear violation of his most basic rights guaranteed to him by local and international laws and constitutions”, he added.
UAE opposition
Al-Jazouli was arrested two weeks after criticizing the practices of the Sudanese authorities and allowing regional foreign parties, in reference to the UAE, to interfere in Sudan’s affairs to curb the Sudanese revolution and divide the country.
It is noteworthy that he was arrested before for hours in May 2019, after warning against regional interference which destroyed other Arab Spring revolutions in neighboring countries.
“The detention of Al-Jazouli by the Intelligence Service’s is a clear violation of Article 37 of the Constitutional Declaration, which limited its function to collecting information only, and according to which, Article 50 of the National Security Law was amended and prohibited the intelligence service from detaining citizens”.
Al-Jazouli is subjected to a number of human rights and legal violations in prison, as he is deprived of communicating with his lawyer or knowing the real reasons for his arrest. His unlawful detention by the General Intelligence Services is a clear violation of Article 37 of the Constitutional Declaration, which limited the Services to collecting information only, according to which, Article 50 of the National Security Law was amended, prohibiting the Intelligence Services from arresting citizens.
AOHR UK held the Sudanese authorities responsible for the continued detention of Al-Jazouli in light of the outbreak of the Coronavirus, which spread in some Sudanese prisons where dozens of people have been infected with it, amid lack of preventive measures by the authorities to protect the detainees.
Risk of arrest
All thinkers, journalists, human rights defenders and others who openly criticize the Sudanese authorities are always at risk of arrest, threats and harassment, and the authorities have already arrested dozens of them, and dismissed hundreds of their jobs because of their old political affiliations, according to the organisation.
AOHR UK called on the United Nations Secretary-General and the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and Human Rights Defenders to pressure the Sudanese regime to release Mohamed Al-Jazouli and other opponents and prisoners of conscience in Sudan immediately.
