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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Sudan
Index
General supervision of the Sudan Prison Service was carried
out by the director general of prisons, who was responsible for
the country's central prisons and reformatories. Provincial
authorities managed detention centers and jails in their
administrative jurisdictions. The central prisons were Kober in
Khartoum North, Shalla in Al Fashir, Darfur State, and Port Sudan
on the Red Sea. It was reported that there were about 140 local
prisons and detention centers in the early 1990s.
Prison conditions were generally poor. Treatment of prisoners
varied widely, however. Some were restricted by shackles, while
others were allowed to return home at night. There were
persistent reports of beatings and other forms of mistreatment,
including torture, of detainees and other political prisoners in
the central penal institutions, although these were apparently
inflicted by security officials and not regular prison guards.
After reports appeared that detainees of the Bashir government
were being subjected to torture, Amnesty International was
allowed to visit a select group of prisoners at Kober, where
prison conditions were reputed to be the best in Sudan.
Facilities at the large prison at Port Sudan were spartan.
Although treatment was not brutal, extreme heat contributed to
the harsh living conditions. The most primitive conditions were
said to be at Shalla. In general, political prisoners welcomed
transfer to prison to escape physical abuse from security
personnel.
Although conditions at prison hospitals were described as
fair, a number of political prisoners complained of being denied
treatment for medical problems. Trade unionists arrested after
the 1989 coup and held at Kober Prison submitted a protest
alleging the denial of family visits and of adequate medical
treatment, while challenging the legal grounds for their arrests.
In retaliation, the government transferred many of them to Shalla
Prison, 600 kilometers from Khartoum.
* * *
Details on military units and equipment are available from
The Military Balance published annually by the
International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. Further
information on the sources of Sudan's arms can be found in
Forecast International/DMS Market Intelligence Report:
Middle East and Africa. Reports by two international human
rights organizations give accounts of the conflict in the south,
the role of various militia groups, and the abuses committed by
all of the fighting units, especially against the civilian
population. These are Amnesty International's Sudan: Human
Rights Violations in the Context of Civil War, published in
1989, and Africa Watch's Denying "The Honor of Living:" Sudan,
A Human Rights Disaster, published in 1990.
The Southern Sudan by Douglas H. Johnson provides a
concise account of the fighting in the south through 1988. The
section on Sudan by Gwynne Dyer in World Armies includes
an abbreviated history of the Sudanese armed forces until 1983.
Articles by John O. Voll in Current History in 1986 and
1990 discuss the record of military regimes in Sudan as
alternatives to civilian government.
United States-Sudanese military relations are recounted in
Jeffrey A. Lefebvre's "Globalism and Regionalism: U.S. Arms
Transfers to Sudan" in Armed Forces and Society.
Information on the criminal courts system and the record of the
Bashir government with respect to judicial processes and human
rights can be found in the annual Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices published by the United States Department of
State.
(For further information and
complete citations,
see Bibliography).
Data as of June 1991
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