Statement on the revelation that the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) operates illegal interrogation and detention centers in Sudan

Earlier this month Bahaa-aldin Nouri, was kidnapped at a market in the Kalakla area of Khartoum. Five days later, his dead body was found exhibiting signs of brutal torture.
The spokesperson of the Sudanese Transitional Government and Minister of Media, Faisal Mohamed Salih, reported in a press conference two days ago that Bahaa had been interrogated at a centre belonging to the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). This news hit Sudanese civil society like an earthquake. It was the first evidence to come to light that the RSF runs its own shadow security centres, independent of official state structures and entirely outside the law. This has reminded every Sudanese of the previous regime's “Ghost Houses”, in which so many disappeared, were tortured and murdered starting in the early 1990s.
The RSF is a paramilitary body led by Mohammad Hamdan Dagalo (known as “Hemedti”); he is the current Deputy Chairperson of the Sovereign Council and thus at the highest levels of the government. As SudanUprising Germany and several human rights organizations have written in the past, the RSF is a rebranding of the genocidal Janjaweed militias, which are accused of committing war crimes in Darfur, South Kordofan/Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile state. The militia is also accused of maiming, killing and raping protestors, including at the massacre committed on 3 June 2019 to disperse the peaceful, two-months-long sit-in in front of the Military General Command in Khartoum.
In a statement issued on the same day as Minister Salih’s revelation, the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA), which is composed of several unions and trade associations and which was the leading protest coordinating body during the revolution, gave the government a 14 day deadline to fulfill the following demands:

1. Remove any immunity shielding those involved in the arrest and torture of Bahaa and hand them over immediately for investigation and prosecution.
2. Close the RSF’s detention centres and release or transfer all detainees to the police. This demand applies to any detention centre belonging to any entity other than the police.
3. Establish controls to end and prevent any arrests except by the police and to ensure that due process is followed. [1]

Failure to implement these demands, the SPA has warned, will lead to an escalation of civic action and street protest.

In October of this year, SudanUprising Germany launched the #EndJanjaweed campaign. We believe, as do most Sudanese, that the RSF represents a grave and present danger to the Sudanese people and their revolutionary demands of freedom, peace, justice and a democratic Sudan for all.

The objective of #EndJanjaweed is to end Germany and the European Union’s unethical and immoral policy support for migration control and externalized borders in Sudan. This policy has made the EU complicit in the rise of the genocidal RSF militia, as detailed in in our previous reports. While the EU and Germany speak publicly and warmly of promoting human rights in Sudan, privately, their deal-making with Sudanese officials have in fact led the RSF to thrive, prosper and cement its power. This power has put the militia in a position to flagrantly defy the law again and again, and to continue the regime of terror that has characterized the last three decades.

To put it bluntly, the EU has contributed to making the RSF the blood-thirsty and power-hungry monster that it is today- a monster that continues to wreak havoc on the lives of millions of Sudanese such as Bahaa.

Bahaa’s murder and the shadow infrastructure of violence that it has uncovered make the #EndJanjaweed campaign more urgent than ever. We call on all who stand in solidarity with us and our revolution to get informed, involved and to take action. With your solidarity and commitment, we can confront the EU’s murderous border regime and with that, end the RSF once and for all.


End Notes
[1] Sudanese Professional Association (SPA), Statement on 26 December 2020 (in Arabic). Accessed on 28 December 2020. https://www.facebook.com/SdnProAssociation/posts/4245838775442777
[2] SudanUprising Germany, “#EndJanjaweed”. Accessed on 28 December 2020. http://www.sudanuprising.com/endjanjaweed.html
[3] SudanUprising Germany, “The  Rapid Support Forces and the European Union’s Migration Control Policy in Sudan”. Accessed on 28 December 2020. http://www.sudanuprising.com/the-rapid-support-forces-and-the-european-unions-migration-control-policy-in-sudan.html

Note to SUG comrades: please use these hashtags
#EndJanjaweed  
#لا_للجنجويد
#الثورة_مستمرة
#تصفية_وتفكيك_مقار_الدعم_السريع_للإعتقالات
#تصفية_بيوت_أشباح_جهاز_الأمن_والدعم_السريع
#الدعم_السريع_قاتل