Sudanese security forces have arrested three activists from the country’s pro-democracy movement, according to a family member, their colleagues and report local media.
Mohamad “Tupac” Adam, Mohamad al-Fattah and Mohamad al-Bushra were arrested Tuesday morning in Madani, a town in the northern state of Jazeera, as they called a meeting to discuss how to help internally displaced people. Jazeera.
Adam and al-Fattah often distributed food and aid to people arriving in the city after fleeing conflict in the capital Khartoum, activists and residents said.
They added that the young men were being held by the Central Reserve Police Force, which is working with the Sudanese army in its fight against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).
“I am very scared and I don’t know what to do now,” Adam’s mother, Nidal Arbab Suliman, told Al Jazeera from her home in the capital Khartoum. “I’m afraid if anyone else in our family leaves the house, they’ll be beaten up or arrested.”
It was not immediately clear why the men were arrested. Al Jazeera has contacted Sudan’s military spokesman Nabil Abdullah for comment.
Activists and analysts say Tuesday’s arrests are part of a wider campaign by the military and allied forces to crack down on well-known personalities of the pro-democracy movement and consolidate control over relief supplies.
Since the outbreak of the conflict on April 15, doctors, journalists and politicians have been smeared, threatened and attacked. Members of the resistance committees — neighborhood groups that lead the call for democracy and provide vital services to civilians caught in the fighting — have also been targeted.
On May 7, the army arrested two men from a resistance committee for escorting wounded RSF fighters to a hospital before publishing a statement justifying the arrests by equating the activists with enemy fighters.
The two were released the next day after a public outcry.
“One story the military has tried to portray is that resistance committees are somehow engaged in humanitarian work and somehow supporting the RSF,” Hamid Murtada, a Sudanese analyst and member of a resistance committee, told me. , to Al Jazeera from Cairo in Egypt. where he recently arrived after fleeing Khartoum.
“That gives the [army] an excuse to attack, kidnap and even kill them.”
Torture and ill-treatment
Adam and al-Fattah were among hundreds of prisoners who escaped after the RSF last month attacked prisons in Khartoum.
Adam was previously detained by security forces two months after the October 2021 military coup that derailed the country’s transition to democracy, after participating in anti-coup protests. He and two other people were charged with killing a police officer. Adam’s lawyers said he was denied a fair trial and tortured.
His case became a rallying cry for the pro-democracy movement, some human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human rights watch to advocate for due process and humane treatment.
But as the conflict in Sudan escalates, there is increasing attention at home and abroad on allegations of human rights violations, but less attention on the treatment of detainees. Rights groups have documented reports of sexual assault and rape, allegations of arbitrary arrests and kidnappings and damage to medical facilities.
The lack of oversight means de facto authorities have little reason to fear repercussions for subjecting detainees to ill-treatment, according to Emma DiNapoli, an international law expert who has followed the cases of Adam and al-Fattah.
“Even before the conflict…prisons were overcrowded, detainees were routinely subjected to torture and ill-treatment, and the judiciary was unable to protect rights. The experiences of Tupac and al-Fattah in prison confirm this,” she told Al Jazeera.
“Now, given the situation in Sudan, we can only expect a worsening of conditions in detention centers, with very high risks of torture or deprivation of food and water and only limited ability of lawyers to monitor conditions and advocate for detainees .”
Compete for legitimacy
Military Intelligence arrested three more members of the resistance committee from North Khartoum on Tuesday, the area’s resistance committee tweeted.
It said in a statement that the activists were taken from their homes without explanation.
Murtada said he believes the military and its allies are trying to disrupt and punish resistance committees for taking on the service role to consolidate control over the humanitarian response.
Since the conflict broke out, the committees have provided fuel to power hospitals, arrange food and medicine distributions and set up clinics across the capital.
“[The arrests of activists] shows how the [army] trying to control the international aid that comes in,” Murtada said.
Last week, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on international aid organizations to coordinate the distribution of relief supplies with the Humanitarian Aid Commission (HAC), a government agency.
“Unfortunately, the international community is not saying no [cooperating with the army] despite knowing that the entities of the Sudanese armed forces, such as HAC, cannot be trusted to provide humanitarian aid,” Murtada told Al Jazeera. “The military uses [aid] for political gain.”