DOCTORS DETAINED, RISK TORTURE
Six doctors have been arrested for their activities as members of a committee calling for better pay and working conditions for doctors in
Sudan: they are prisoners of conscience. They are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.
Doctors Alhadi Bahkit and Walla Aldin are members of the Doctors' Strike Committee organising strike action to demand improvement of their salaries and working conditions. They were arrested on 1 June by officers of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS). The men were held for three hours, during which, according to sources in
Sudan, they were severely beaten. Dr Alhadi Bahkit was rearrested shortly afterwards, and has been detained without charge ever since. His family were able to visit him on 7 June. He apparently seems in poor health.
The president of the doctors' committee, Dr Ahmed Alabwabi, was also arrested on 1 June, and has been detained without charge since then.
On 2 June the NISS attacked doctors and medical students from the
University of
Khartoum protesting against the detention of the members of the Doctors' Strike Committee, badly injuring several of them.
Four more doctors have since been arrested. Ashraf Hammad was reportedly arrested on 2 June, Mahmoud Khairallah on 6 June, Abdelaziz Ali Jamee on 7 June, and Ahmed Abdallah Khalafallah in the evening on 8 June. They have all been detained without charge since then.
NISS agents have apparently been looking for members of the Doctors' Strike Committee, as well as journalists reporting on their cases, forcing them to go into hiding.
Sudan's 2010 National Security Act provides NISS agents with extensive powers of arrest and detention. Detainees can be held for up to four-and-a-half months without judicial review and NISS agents have immunity from prosecution for any human rights violations carried out as part of their work.
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Calling on them to provide all six doctors with any medical attention they may require;
