وا أسفاه على دماء الشهداء

بقلم سميره كرار

لقد كتب علينا مغادرة الوطن مكرهين. لا حباَ في الاغتراب ولكن لنجد مكاناَ نستظل به ونرفع صوتنا عالياَ مطالبين بالقصاص لشهداء 28 رمضان وزوال هذا النظام الذي يجثم على صدر البلاد. وكل الأنباء التي ترد من السودان تؤكد أن لا كرامة لمواطن ولا يزال الاعتقال والتحفظ وبيوت الأشباح مفتوحة. لا تزال حرية الرأي رهينة فلا فكر ولا رأى.

الأعلام مازال يبرمج وموجه لإعلام الجبهة.

دُمر اقتصاد السودان بفعل سياستهم وزاد الفقراء فقراَ . بينما زبانية الجبهة يعيشون عيشة الملوك داخل الوطن الفقير.

والسودان مازال رمزاَ للإرهاب ومصادراَ لحقوق الإنسان.

لقد ضاقت الحلقة ولم يجد البشير مخرجاَ ألا أن ينقلب على شيخه الترابي ولكن هيهات البشير شريك كامل في كل الجرائم التي ارتكبت منذ يونيو 1989 مهما تنصل منها فلن يقفر له الشعب الذي اكتوى بناره وذاق الأمرين في ظل حكمه.

البشير يدعوا المعارضة في للمشاركة في الحكم :

وأنني أتساءل هل تضع المعارضة يدها البيضاء في أيادي من تلطخت أياديهم ووجوههم بدماء أبناء السودان الحبيب. ومن يفعل ذلك فقد باع نفسه ووطنه وباء بغضب الله ومن تبعه.

المعارضة عليها أن تطيح بذلك النظام القمعي الدموي ممثلاَ في البشير والترابي وكل أركانه وتقديمهم لمحاكمة لتقتص لنا وتطهر ارض السودان من الظلم.

ويبقى سؤالي يا عمر البشير , ماذا أنت قائل لأولئك الذين أوردتهم مورد الهلاك ؟ ماذا يقول شيخك الترابي لآلاف السباب الذين خدعوا بشعاراتكم الجوفاء ؟

ماذا تقولون لأولئك الذين باعوا حياتهم رخيصة ومن ورائهم أم وزوج مكلومة وأطفال يتم وبعد كل هذا انتم ابعد عن الدين وما اتخذتم الدين إلا مطية ورمح على سنانه تتكالبون على السلطة وسلطان زائف. ألا رحم الله الشهداء ولنا في الحياة قصاص ويا فجيعتنا في عرس الشهيد ببنات الحور.

نحن كتنظيم أسر شهداء 28 رمضان نجدد عهدنا بأن نضالنا لن يتوقف حتى آخر قطرة من دمائنا تحقيقاَ وفداء شهداء الحرية الديمقراطية الذين أناروا بدمائهم الأرجوانية طريق الحرية والكرامة.

أن شهداء 28 رمضان دفعوا مهراَ غالباَ لاستعادة الديمقراطية وسيستمر النضال بآذن الله ألي أن تتحقق أهداف الحركة الباسلة,

نحن كتنظيم أسر شهداء حركة رمضان بالخارج نحي تنظيمنا المصادم بشراسة للنظام في السودان.

نرفض وبالصوت العالي المساومات مع النظام الموي.

وكما كانت حركة رمضان نبراساَ وجذوة، انطلق منها لهيب الكفاح ورفعت شعارات التضحية والفداء لغد مشرق تلغفت الراية جموع الثوار الاحرار في بوتقة التجمع الوطني الديمقراطي الصامد بالخارج.

التجمع الوطني العملاق الذي لن يخدع ولم يصدق ولن يؤمن بدعوته بالانفراج السياسي . وما كان اعتقال السيد سيد احمد الحسين إلا عنواناَ لذلك.

كل ما يهدف اليه البشير بقاءه في السلطة.لايجاد حل ليخرج به من النظام و المقربين اليه ، من اطراف المعارضة من ازماتهم تحت ما يسمى بالوفاق او المصلحة والتي تهدف الى المحافظة على النظام واستمراره ضمن ثوابته واختيارته السياسية والعقائدية من خلاال تقسيم السلطة مع من تسول لهم انفسهم ببيع الوطن والقضية بكراسي الحكم . ولكن دم الشهداء لن يجف ولن ينجو النظام من المحاسبة حتى ولو بقي ثائر واحد

NIF Rule - Return to the Harem
The immediate ban on political parties, unions and associations decreed by the National Islamic Front when it seized power in June 1989 extended to women's organisations and to women's participation in public life. Over 100 women's voluntary groups and philanthropic societies registered with the Ministry of Social Welfare were closed down, along with political groups such as the women's bureaux of the Umma, Democratic Unionist and Ba'ath parties. These bureaux had been influential in pushing for provision for women in development programmes

The NIF sacked about 40 per cent of the women working in ministries, corporations and parastatals in the modern sector. Dozens of leading women in trades unions and professional associations were expelled from their positions. Some were tortured or repeatedly arrested and detained. The military-fundamentalist regime was all too aware of their role in promoting women's rights and their opposition to the war, and was determined to remove them permanently.

The return to the era of the "harem" (seclusion of women) was signalled by Bashir's January 1990 pronouncement on the "ideal Sudanese woman". It was followed by the government order in November 1991 for all women to wear "hijab" - what the regime claimed was "Islamic" dress, but was in fact the Iranian-style "chador". Women who refused to comply with the new regulations were subjected to arrest, flogging and humiliation.

Many still resisted the order, and even formed the Association for Defence of the Sudanese Tobe to emphasise their rejection. This association was named after the customary dress of Northern Sudanese women, a length of cloth like the Indian sari, used to wrap around the body except for the face and hands.

In a secretly distributed statement, the SWU declared that the real intention behind the government order was "to enable merchants of the NIF to collect huge financial gains" by obliging women to purchase the imported Iranian dress - "a commercial hijab" - instead of the locally available Sudanese "tobe". The "tobe" had become a symbol of national self-respect and identification for Northern Sudanese women, and already conformed with Islamic standards of modesty - why should it be changed, except for commercial gain?

In its concern to see women return to the home, the regime overlooks the fact that a lot of Sudanese women are obliged to be bread-winners for their families. Opportunities for legitimate income generation are taken away with no thought for the consequences. Many women from the poorer classes work in the markets or set up street stalls selling tea, coffee, sandwiches or peanuts. Often unable to obtain trading licences, they have repeated been the targets of "kasha", a policy pre-dating the regime but enthusiastically employed by it. "Kasha" means taking away suspected offenders in lorries and confiscating their equipment, and functions as a general means of intimidation.

Rape in War
The use of rape as a weapon of war has increased, and the women of the Nuba Mountains and Southern Sudan are particularly at risk. There have been many reliable accounts of the government's encouragement of members of the militia forces to rape and impregnate the women in these conflict areas. In displacement camps in the Nuba Mountains, women are often separated from their husbands, and the children are "educated" with extremist propaganda. The purpose of the exercise is to accelerate social breakdown in the indigenous cultures under attack, and to create a generation of children inculcated with the values of the NIF.

Extrajudicial Killings, Torture and Arbitrary Arrest
In Southern Sudan, thousands of women and children - often already displaced by war - were bombed by the Sudanese Air Force in raids on camps and villages. Elsewhere in the country, women were the victims of military action by the government against "rebels" in the Nuba Mountains of Kordofan, and among the Zagawa and Fur peoples of Darfur.

At the University of Khartoum, an NIF loyalist shot dead a female student who was taking part in a peaceful demonstration against the regime's new administrative and financial policies. A number of impoverished women and children were killed while protesting at the government's destruction of their homes in the unplanned area of Khartoum known as "Dar al-Salaam".

The security forces, the backbone of the regime, carried out systematic harassment of the leaders of the banned women's organisations. This treatment was dealt out to Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim of the SWU, Sarah al-Fadil Mohamed of the Umma Party Women's Bureau, Sarah Nugdallah of the Umma Party, and Rashidah Abd al-Karim, former minister of social affairs and state minister of education in the 1986-89 period of civilian government. Other prominent detainees included Amal Jabrallah, a physician and trade unionist; Thoriyah al-Tuhami, a housewife; and Amira Hassan Mahdi, who was imprisoned for three years. Fatima al-Ginaid was imprisoned with all her children in the remote desert at Shalla prison, Darfur, together with her husband, a trade unionist detained since the coup.

Most notoriously, the security forces took Buthaina Dokah, a nurse at Khartoum Civil Hospital, to a secret detention centre (or "ghost house") and tortured her to the threshold of insanity. The New York-based Fund for Peace reported on 15 May 1992 that "Buthaina was captured in December 1990 ... The security officers gagged her with her bra and strung her up from the ceiling by her hands (behind her back) and feet, and beat her from morning to midnight. She received this abuse for allegedly using a walkie-talkie. Although she was accused of belonging to the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), in fact she was a part-time employee with Chevron Company of Khartoum. After about two months in the ghost house, Buthaina was transferred to Omdurman Prison where she was kept another month before being released. Immediately on her release, Buthaina had a mental breakdown. As of February 1992, she was institutionalised in a psychiatric hospital, where she suffers from hallucinations and paranoid delusions."

The testimony of former MP Fatima Ahmed Ibrahim concerning her own treatment highlights the hypocrisy of the regime: "Late in 1990, General al-Bashir declared that he was willing to accept public criticisms of his government. The SWU took the opportunity to submit to the General a memorandum on the living conditions at the time - the scarcity of basic commodities, the arbitrary arrests of women and the suffering of the children, the policies of purging the public service, tortures and the extrajudicial execution of 28 army officers. As soon as al-Bashir received the women's memorandum, I was summoned to the State Security Headquarters, where I was ordered to attend every morning for seven days for interrogation. There I found a number of women and men whom I knew were subjected to similar interrogation for months while forced to attend the place at their own expense."

In spite of these tortures and systematic harassment, the women's democratic movement continued to organise in different ways, and resistance did not cease. Hundreds of women marched through the streets of Omdurman protesting against the economic policies of the NIF. They called attention to the unprecedented hardships imposed on the people, the spread of famine and the impoverishment of the country. They carried with them empty pots and pans, which they banged loudly in an expression of anger and disgust, and raised banners criticising price rises and inflation.

The Ramadan Martyrs' Families
On 24 April 1990, during Ramadan, the government executed 28 army officers and more than 200 non-commissioned officers suspected of involvement in an attempted coup d'etat. They were reportedly machine-gunned and buried in a mass grave. The wives and families of the officers formed a Martyrs' Families' League, and began to campaign actively against the regime. Their goals were: to work together with all democratic forces in Sudan to overthrow the NIF government; to bring to public trial all accomplices in the torture and extrajudicial execution of the officers and soldiers; to locate the secret graves of the martyrs; for the wills of the martyrs to be shown to the families, and for the men's belongings to be returned to their families.

Every month, the Ramadan Martyrs' Families' League met to commemorate the death of their loved ones. These family gatherings were frequently broken up by the security forces. Although no-one was actually killed, many women and children were terrorised with guns, arrested, beaten, insulted and detained for many days.

For the second anniversary of the Martyrs' Day, the families gathered in April 1992 in Sharia al-Qasr, the avenue leading to the Republican Palace. They closed the streets around and distributed leaflets condemning the Bashir regime's violations of human rights. The members, all women and children, entered the palace gates to approach the statue of the Unknown Soldier. Security men arrested 23 women, of whom one was severely ill, an eight-year-old girl, and the mother of a newborn baby. They were held in Omdurman Prison for more than a month without charge or trial, and were only released because of immense national and international pressure on their behalf.

Among those arrested and tortured were Magda Awad Khogali, sister of Captain Mustafa Awad, her sister Manal with her infant Mona, and their mother, Jarah Osman. Also held were the widow of Colonel Bashir Mustafa Bashir, the sister of Colonel Ismat Mirghani Taha, the widow of Brigadier Osman al-Sayed Balol, the widow and sister of Lt-Col Abd al-Moneim Hassan Ali Karrar, and the sister of Captain Mudathir Mohamed al-Mahjoub.

In 1993 Dr Gaspar Biro, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Sudan, was in Khartoum holding meetings with victims of the regime and investigating allegations against the Sudanese government. Members of the Ramadan Martyrs' Families' League - women and children - met Dr Biro at the gate of the United Nations building to give him a memorandum about the Ramadan 1990 killings. They were attacked by security officers, beaten and carried off in police cars to Omdurman Prison, right in before the eyes of the Special Rapporteur.

The League has established two branches abroad, in London and Cairo, to take part in the continuing struggle to restore democracy and free Sudan of the rule of the NIF.

Women and Law

The Morality Police
Among the many security organisations created by the National Islamic Front regime to maintain its control over the population, there are several which focus their attention on women. The primary task of the NIF-loyalists of the Popular Police is to carry out surveillance. They are empowered, in the same way as the State Security apparatus, to arrest without charge and to imprison without trial. Where women are concerned, they have a particular interest in enforcing the "hijab" dress code.

The Salvation Popular Committees, established in every section of every town, report to the authorities and directly to the courts about the loyalty of local people to the NIF. They also concern themselves with women's conformity to the regime's code of behaviour, as do the Public Order Police. A woman who has waited "too long" in a bus station risks arrest by the Public Order Police on suspicion of immorality.

A militant religious body called "The Group to Enjoin Good and Forbid Evil", in addition to keeping watch over the public - especially women - is authorised by the NIF to flog offenders.

Discriminatory Laws
New legislation introduced by the NIF regime discriminates against women in Sudan by means of the criminal law, the law of prosecution and the law of criminal procedure, introduced in the 1991 Penal Code.

The first blow was the reduction of the age of criminal responsibility, formerly set at 18 years in the 1974 Penal Code. This has now been redefined in terms of attainment of puberty, usually around the age of 13 or even younger. The 1974 laws deemed it a criminal act to contract a marriage with a girl less than 14 years old, irrespective of her consent. Sexual relations outside marriage with any girl below 18 years of age were punishable by law. These provisions were regarded as protecting girls from early marriage and teenage pregnancy.

In place of this protection, the government has encouraged mass weddings and allotted grants of several thousand Sudanese pounds to each couple taking part. These mass weddings, although they overcame the existing problems of expensive dowries for the brides and were welcomed by some young people, were regarded by the Sudan Women's Union as humiliating for the women involved in these "production line" affairs. The SWU says the institution has been widely abused for the sake of convenience, and many divorces were registered soon after the marriage ceremony.

Meanwhile, traditional Sudanese weddings have come under increasingly tight control. Permission for many wedding parties has been refused because of the regime's preoccupation with security and ideology, and others have been limited under the Public Order Act. The law has been used to forbid males and females to mix at such parties, and to ban dancing and music at the whim of government officials. The former Minister of Interior, Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Hussain, arrested two girls with their parents because, in his view, "they were not decently dressed".

Rape has become virtually impossible for a woman to prove, and if she reports a rape she risks being accused of complicity. The law of prosecution requires male witnesses to give evidence in order to prove an act of rape before the court. For "huduud" crimes, the testimony of women is not accepted. In the absence of male witnesses, even if there are female eye-witnesses, the wrong-doer may be released, and may even bring charges of defamation against the plaintiff. The penalty for such defamation is 80 lashes. A judge will often advise a woman plaintiff against proceeding with a case of rape, because of the risk to the woman.

An unmarried woman who admits to sexual relations or becomes pregnant can be tried for a "huduud" crime for which the penalty is 80 lashes. If she is married, or has previously been married, the crime is adultery and the penalty is execution.

Under the 1974 Law of Criminal Procedure, the plaintiff was allowed to withdraw his or her complaint at any stage of the investigation of a case, and magistrates were obliged to dismiss the case accordingly. Only written complaints were permitted. If a case of adultery by a married woman was reported by a third party, the case would only proceed if the husband willed it, and he was free to withdraw his complaint. When a wife deserted the home to live with another man, or became involved in sexual relations with someone else, the husband might file a complaint. However, when it came to court, although the woman might be found guilty, the matter would be handled in a way that encouraged reconciliation, in order to preserve stability in the community and ensure the welfare of the children. Public criticism of the woman would ensure the preservation of male dignity, but no further action was considered necessary.

The new laws treat female adultery as a "huduud" crime even if the husband wishes to reconcile with his partner. An adulterous woman can be stoned to death, or imprisoned and separated from her.

A new "family law" was introduced in 1991 which reinforced male dominance over women by requiring women to obtain their husband's consent before visiting her family or friends. In Central State and Eastern State, additional regulations were brought in at provincial level to restrict women's movement in the streets to certain hours of the day. This humiliating treatment lowers the status of women and puts them under permanent suspicion.

Section 152 of the Criminal Law 1991 punishes acts of "gross indecency" with 40 lashes. The interpretation of what constitutes indecency is left to the arresting authority. Sentencing is at the discretion of the magistrate, who is supposed to take into account the religious beliefs of the accused. In practice, members of the Popular Police arrest women for wearing what they consider to be indecent dress, which can be any dress other than the "hijab". They are also quick to allege indecency when a woman is accompanied in public by a male not related to her. Detention in police stations often leads to the arrested woman being verbally and physically humiliated, and sometimes to actual assault.

The right of women to travel freely has been greatly reduced by the Bashir government. Women are prohibited from leaving the country unless they are accompanied by a "muharram" or approved male guardian. The Ministry of Interior exercises total authority over applications by women for permission to travel, using a committee largely composed of NIF loyalists. If a male guardian is available, he must appear in person before the committee to give his consent. Even then, the authorities are empowered to prevent the woman from obtaining an exit visa. The exceptions to these tight limitations are women supporting the regime, particularly those from NIF women's organisations, who can travel without hindrance.

Recommendations
The status of women in Sudan will not begin to improve until the discriminatory behaviour of the National Islamic Front is ended and the legal system restored to international norms. Women are entitled to equal rights under the law, whether as plaintiffs, witnesses or as the accused.

The Government of Sudan must recognise, in full, those international human rights laws which specify the equality of men and women. The powers of groups such as the Popular Police force to carry out arbitrary arrests of women must be removed, and the vague, easily distorted "family laws" and "indecency" laws restricting the movement of women must be abolished. The age of criminal responsibility should revert to 18 years.

A thorough investigation is needed into the widespread use of rape and sexual abuse against women by members of government forces. Although these practices did not begin with this government, they have increased dramatically.

The welfare of children must be a priority, for example where the imprisonment of women is concerned, and in conflict situations. Children's vulnerability must be respected in accordance with the International Convention on the Rights of the Child.