Letter to end Impunity for Serious Human Rights Abuses in Sudan.
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
RE: End Impunity for Serious Human Rights Abuses in Sudan
Dear President Biden,
We, the undersigned 108 human rights organizations, scholars and leading activists, urge you to impose targeted sanctions on Sudanese Generals Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, known as Hemedti, for their connection to serious human rights abuses associated with and as a result of the coup they staged in Sudan on October 25, 2021. The serious human rights abuses connected to Burhan and Hemedti are in violation of the International Bill of Human Rights and the Rights and Freedoms Charter included in Sudan’s 2019 Constitutional Declaration.
Burhan and Hemedti are connected to a long list of serious human rights abuses:
- The coup and subsequent state of emergency violate the right and will of the Sudanese people to form a civilian government with no military partnership, negotiations and legitimacy.
- The people’s right to peaceful assembly has been repeatedly violated by forces controlled by Burhan and Hemedti that have targeted and killed over 90 and injured more than 3,000 peaceful protestors.
- Since the coup, Burhan and Hemedti have ordered the violent and arbitrary arrest, and in some cases, rape and torture of political opponents and peaceful protestors in order to intimidate and eliminate opposition to their illegal seizure of the state.
- Islamic extremists, welcomed back after the coup, have begun to harass, attack and detain religious minorities.
- The Sudanese people’s right to basic services has evaporated because of the coup. World Bank funding and projects to benefit the entire country rightly came to an abrupt halt when Burhan and Hemedti staged the coup. Because of the coup, the country is faced with certain economic collapse and the World Food Programme predicts that half of Sudan, 20 million people, will face hunger due to food shortages, a number that has doubled since last year. This, by no means, is an exhaustive list of serious human rights abuses connected to Burhan and Hemedti. Their involvement in the Darfur genocide and ongoing violence in the region, Nuba Mountains, Blue Nile and other areas are well documented. Each abuse on its own merits targeted sanctions. Viewing these abuses collectively, the obvious and overwhelming threat to the Sudanese people’s right to life, liberty and security warrants immediate targeted sanctions.
Your Administration is well aware of the serious human rights abuses connected to Burhan and Hemedti. The abuses are outlined in detail in the State Department’s Sudan 2021 Human Rights Report, which notably contrasts the better human rights record of Sudan’s Civilian-Led Transitional Government with the serious human rights abuses committed by and after the coup by Burhan and Hemedti, the organizations they lead, and those they associate with and empower.
It is vitally important that your Administration does not accept the coup as the new status quo in Sudan. The people of Sudan have courageously established a new paradigm of freedom, peace and justice that must be respected and supported. Abrogation of Sudan’s new paradigm by Burhan and Hemedti warrants the Administration’s outrage, not complacency. The coup and all serious human rights abuses connected to Generals Burhan and Hemedti demand targeted sanctions at a minimum and as an important and necessary component of an overall strategy to support the restoration of democratic transition in Sudan.
Respectfully,
Ambassador and Former U.S. Congressman Tony Hall
Frank Wolf, Member of Congress 1981-2015, retired
Baroness Cox, Independent Member of the House of Lords, UK Parliament; Founder President, Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust, UK
David (Lord) Alton, U.K. House of Lords, London, UK
Aicha Elbasri, Former Spokesperson, United Nations, Sudan
Prof. Mukesh Kapila, Former Head of the UN in Sudan, Professor Emeritus, Global Health and Humanitarian Affairs, University of Manchester, UK
Resistance Committee, Khartoum North – Bahri, Sudan
Ibrahim Taha Ayoub, Retired Ambassador, FFC Sudan, Sudan
AAHEP (Africa America Higher Education Partnership), Pius K. Kamau MD, President, USA
African Freedom Coalition, Al Sutton M.D., President, New York
Ahmed el-Gaili, Harvard University, Cambridge
Alliance for the Lost Boys of Sudan, Joan Hecht, Founder and President, Author of the Journey of the Lost Boys, Jacksonville
Association of Sudanese American Professors in America, Nada Fadul, USA
Atrocities Watch, Dismas Nkunda, Uganda
Awad Ibrahim, University of Ottawa, Canada
Bill Casey, Advocate, Our Lady Queen of Peace Church, Arlington
Bonnie Wong, San Francisco
Blue Nile Association USA, Omer Abdelsawi Omer, Washington, DC
Bonnie Abaunza, Abaunza Group, USA
Brooklyn Coalition for Darfur & Marginalized Sudan, Laura Limuli, Coordinator, Brooklyn
Claire Vera, Nuba Now, UK
Coalition Against Global Genocide (CoAGG), Roz Duman, Denver
Coalition of Advocates for South Sudan, Darfur Advocacy Group of South Carolina, Bill Andress, Secretary, Lexington, South Carolina
Collectif Urgence Darfour, Dr. Jacky Mamou, Paris, France
Concerned Citizens for Change, Gene Binder, Member Steering Committee, Bronx
Concerned Citizens of New York, Regina M. King, Member, New York
Crane Center for Mass Atrocity Prevention, Amber Maze, Executive Director, Westfield, IN
DAAM (UK), Ali AM Hussein, UK
Darfur Bar Association
Darfur Network for Monitoring and Documentation DNMD, Kampala.
Darfurian Congress Council of Canada and The United Sudanese International Council, Abd Alla Bakhit, President, Canada
David Cox, President, Pariah Investing, USA
Donna Creasman, San Francisco
Dr. Beckry Abdel-Magid, Winona State University, Winona, USA
Dr. Gregory H. Stanton, Founding President, Genocide Watch, McLean, VA
Dr. Jamal Haleem, USA
Eiman Zein-Elabdin, Professor, Franklin & Marshall College, USA
Ellen J. Kennedy, Ph.D., Executive Director, World Without Genocide, St. Paul, MN
Ellen Wicker Cummings, Board Member, Abukloi Foundation, Rumbek, South Sudan
Eric Reeves, Fellow, Rift Valley Institute, Kenya/UK/US
Frontier Fellowship, Cody U. Watson, Senior Associate Emeritus, Birmingham, AL
Geert Jan Colijn, Dean Emeritus, Stockton University, Pomona, NJ
Georgia Coalition to Prevent Genocide, Melanie Nelkin, Atlanta
Gerard Prunier PhD, Fellow, Atlantic Council, Washington, DC
Global Institute Against Slavery and Genocide Inc., Sunday Taabu, Chair of the Board, USA
Golda Abbe, Ghidam, London, UK
Group Against Torture in Sudan-GATS, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahaim, Philadelphia
Hassan, Sudanese Community, France
Hagir Elsheikh, CEO, Tomorrow’s Smile INC, USA
Human Rights and Advocacy Network for Democracy
Human Rights and Development Organization (HUDO Centre), Bushra Gamar Hussein, Uganda
Idris Fadul, African Cummunity Centre, Slovenia
Independent Movement Organization, Adil Salih, President, Fairfax, VA
Irwin Spiegelman, Local Chapter, Amnesty International-Group 128, Amherst, MA
James R. Hiskey, Livingstone CC, Annapolis, MD
Jewish World Watch, Serena Oberstein, Los Angeles
Joining Our Voices, Slater Armstrong, Founder & Director, Baton Rouge, LA
Joyce Rothermel, Association of Pittsburgh Priests
KACE, Albaqir Mukhtar, Director, Sudan
Karen Henderson, Waverly, USA
Khalafalla Bushara, Professor of Neurology, University of Minnesota
Mark Brecke, Documentary Filmmaker & Photographer
Martha Spiegelman, Coordinator, Amnesty Local Chapter – Group 128, Amherst, MA
Matthew Kohn, Filmmaker, New York
Mary Loebig Giles, Common Table, San Francisco
MASIO, Ismail, UK
Mohamed Yassin Khalifa, Educator and Human Rights Activist, AAFAT, Cambridge, MA
Mr. Elsayed Mudawi, Human Rights Organizations, Sudan
Mr. Muawia Suleiman, Sudanese Community in the U.K., London
Never Again Coalition, Lauren Fortgang, Director, Portland, OR
New York Coalition for Sudan, Eileen Weiss, Co-Founder, New York
Noelle L’Etoile, Professor, University of California, San Francisco
Nuba Association, Gabrldar Suliman, UK
Nuba Mountain Association USA, Seifeldin Barsham
Nuba Mountains Solidarity Abroad in the UK and North Ireland, Dr. Sallam Tutu, UK
Nubia Project, Nuraddin Abdulmannan, President, Washington, DC
Operation Broken Silence, Mark C. Hackett, Executive Director, Memphis, TN
Pittsburgh Darfur Emergency Coalition, David Rosenberg, Coordinator, Pittsburgh, PA
Quscondy, USA
Professor Elihu D. Richter MD, Hebrew University – Hadassah School and The Jerusalem Center for Genocide Prevention, Jerusalem, Israel
Professor Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco
Rebecca Tinsley, Founder, Waging Peace, London, UK
Regional Centre for Training and Development of Civil Society RCDCS
RehabNOVA International, Dr. Mustafa Sharif, President and CEO, College Station, TX
Rights for Peace, Cara Priestley, Advocacy Officer, UK
Robert K. Hitchcock, University of New Mexico Albuquerque
Sabir, Nuba Mountains, UK
Saifeldin Gibreel, Sudanese Political Activist, San Francisco
Samuel Totten, Professor Emeritus, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville
Stop Genocide Now, Felicia Lee, Global Programs Manager, California
Sudan For All, Emad Bukhari, Founder, Tempe, AZ
Sudan NextGen, Sally Elatta, USA
Sudan Taskforce, Mohy Omer, Founder, Washington, DC
Sudan Unlimited, Esther Sprague, Founder and Director, San Francisco
Sudan’s Doctors for Human Rights, Dr Husam El-mugamar, UK
Sudanese American Public Affairs Association, Inc. (SAPAA), Fareed Zein, Board Chair, Houston, TX
Sudanese Association, Mr. Omer Saeed, USA
Sudanese Community in Glasgow, Almahdi Abdurahman, UK
The Elsa-Gopa Trust, Nell Okie, Madison, CT
The Framework Mechanism, Achol Bark, Khartoum, Sudan
The Rev. David B. Carver, First United Presbyterian Church of Crafton Heights, Pittsburgh, PA
The Reverend Ronald D. Culmer, St. Clare’s Episcopal Church, Pleasanton, CA
Unflinching Hope Worldwide, Rev. Heidi McGinness, Omaha, NE
Unite for the Country, Bahar Arabie, Gaithersburg, MD
Use Your Voice to Stop Genocide RI, Sandra Hammel, Founder, Portsmouth, RI
Victoria Sanford, PhD, Lehman Professor of Excellence, 2021-2024, Professor of Anthropology, Lehman College, Doctoral Faculty, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
Waging Peace, Maddy Crowther, Co-Executive Director, London UK.
Organized by Sudan Unlimited
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