NISS cells in Omdurman prisons were known to local activists as "refrigerators" due to the extremely low controlled temperatures and lack of windows and sunlight. Nor has the government generally investigated violations committed by any branch of the security forces. Human rights monitors reported hundreds of political prisoners; the government claimed it had no political prisoners.
The government severely restricted the access of international humanitarian organizations and human rights monitors to political prisoners. The government maintained a COH in conflict zones while refraining from military offensives during the year.
Respect for Civil Liberties, Including
Measures taken by the government included regular and direct pre-publication censorship, confiscation of publications, legal. The rest were members of the government and security forces dealing with media issues. Violence and intimidation: The government continued to arrest, harass, intimidate and insult journalists and vocal critics of the government.
NISS has initiated and continued legal action against journalists for stories critical of the government and security services. Cybercrime legislation grew during the year, reflecting a tactical shift in the government's strategy to limit internet freedom. The law provides for the freedoms of peaceful assembly and association, but the government has restricted these rights.
Although the provisional national constitution and law provide for freedom of peaceful assembly, the government has severely limited this right. The provisional national constitution and law provide for freedom of association, but the government has severely restricted this right. Early in the year, the government threatened to forcibly relocate South Sudanese refugees living outside camps in Khartoum and the White Nile states to refugee camps.
Traveling abroad: The government requires citizens to obtain an exit visa if they wish to leave the country. The government and SPLM-N continued to deny access to humanitarian actors and UN agencies in SPLM-N controlled areas. The government continued to restrict access to eastern Sudan for international humanitarian NGOs, as it did throughout the country.
Freedom to Participate in the Political Process
The main opposition parties – the National Umma Party, the Forces of National Accord, the Sudanese Congress Party, the Sudanese Communist Party and the People's Congress Party – boycotted the elections; only the ruling NKP party and the National Unity Party participated. According to the President of the National Electoral Commission, the votes were counted in the elections, representing approximately 46% participation. The NKP had 323 seats, the Democratic Unionist Party 25, and the independents 19 seats; other minor political parties won the remaining seats.
General elections for president and the National Assembly are scheduled to be held every five years. The National Assembly changed the constitution in January 2015 to authorize the president to appoint the governors instead of voters electing them. Political parties and political participation: The NCP dominated the political landscape, controlling all the regional governorships and having a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
In December 2016, the National Legislature ratified constitutional amendments recommended by the National Dialogue, which ended in October 2015. The changes included allowing the creation of a post of prime minister, the appointment of additional representatives in parliament, and the separation of the Office of the Attorney General from the Ministry of Justice. Since the 2015 elections, women have held 30 percent of the seats in the National Assembly and 35 percent of the seats in the Senate.
Coptic Christian politicians were prominent in the National Assembly, Khartoum City Government and Khartoum State Assembly.
Corruption and Lack of Transparency in Government
The government continued to harass some opposition leaders who spoke to representatives of foreign organizations or embassies or traveled abroad (see section 2.d.). On March 1, President Bashir appointed First Vice President Bakri Hassan Saleh as the first Prime Minister since 1989, following a parliamentary decision to reinstate the position. Until the end of the year, it remained unclear what direct impact these changes had on respect for the rule of law and the protection of human rights in the country.
Participation of women and minorities: Women have the right to vote and hold public office. Some observers believed that traditional and cultural factors limited women's participation in political life. Corruption: According to the World Bank's most recent Worldwide Governance Indicators, corruption was a serious problem.
The law provides the legislative framework for tackling civil service corruption, but implementation was weak and many sentences were lenient. Penalties for embezzlement included imprisonment or execution for officials, although these penalties were almost never carried out. Reporting on corruption was considered a "red line" by the NISS and a topic that newspapers were largely prohibited from publishing (see section 2.a.).
The Department of Justice's Committee on Financial Disclosure and Inspection and the Unjust and Suspicious Enrichment Administration oversaw compliance.
Governmental Attitude Regarding International and Nongovernmental Investigation of Alleged Abuses of Human Rights
However, government visa denials continued to negatively impact UNAMID, particularly the human rights section, which had a vacancy rate of 44 percent, largely as a result of government visa denials. During the year, the government delayed visas indefinitely for UNAMID human rights section personnel more often than for other UNAMID sections. As of October, 14 of the 15 visas requested in January by UNAMID's human rights section remained pending.
In addition, by year's end the government had not approved a key UN Security Council-mandated base of operations for UNAMID in the Darfuri town of Golo, in an area affected by severe malnutrition and conflict. There were also other bureaucratic obstacles, including delays in government approval of UNAMID flight plans, bans on flights between UNAMID team sites in different sectors, and restrictions on when UNAMID could conduct flights. In addition, access restrictions remained in place for UNAMID human rights reporting and verifications of sexual and gender-based abuses.
The United Nations or other international bodies: The government remained uncooperative with UN Security Council Resolution 1593 and failed to comply with the ICC arrest warrants for President Bashir; Ahmad Muhammad Haroun, former minister for humanitarian affairs and current governor of Northern. Kordofan; former Minister of Defense and current Governor of Khartoum State, Abd al-Rahim Hussein; Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain, a militia leader who fought against the government; and Ali Muhammad Abd al-Rahman Hussein, a senior Jingaweit commander, who supported the government against Darfur rebel groups. The government did not implement the commission's 2014 decision to pay compensation, launch an investigation, amend legislation and train security officials on the prohibition of torture in a case filed on behalf of IDPs in the country.
During the year, the government generally cooperated with the visits of the UN independent expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan, Aristide Nononsi.
Discrimination, Societal Abuses, and Trafficking in Persons Women
The government launched a national campaign in 2008 to eradicate FGM/C by 2018, and as of 2008, five states had passed laws banning FGM/C: South Kordofan, Gedaref, Red Sea, South Darfur and West Darfur. In accordance with Islamic judicial interpretation, a Muslim widow inherits one-eighth of her husband's property; of the remaining seven-eighths, two-thirds go to boys and one-third to girls. Child abuse: The government tried to enforce laws that criminalized child abuse and was more likely to prosecute cases involving child abuse and sexual exploitation.
Sexual Exploitation of Children: Penalties for offenses related to the sexual exploitation of children vary and may include imprisonment, fines, or both. International child abduction: The country is not a party to the 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction. Although the law, including the Interim National Constitution, provides protection for persons with disabilities, social stigma and a lack of resources have hindered government enforcement of disability laws.
The government had not enacted laws or implemented effective programs to provide access to buildings, information and communications for persons with disabilities. There were several cases such as the following example: Nasr Aldin Mukhtar, former president of the Darfuri Student Union at Quran al-Kareem University, was arrested in 2015 and arrested again on August 22 while leaving the university when police used live ammunition during a raid on campus. After the involvement of local leaders and considerable pressure from the international community, the government took no violent action against the students, but stopped the delivery of food supplies.
The Darfuri Members Caucus in Parliament tried unsuccessfully to report the marginalization of Darfuri students to the Minister of Education.
Worker Rights
In South Kordofan, for example, there have been repeated protests against national mining affiliates over these companies' use of cyanide in extraction and refining, resulting in the deaths of local livestock. Resources, inspections and remediation were inadequate, and penalties for violations in the form of fines were infrequent and insufficient to deter violations. There are reports that some children have been involved in forced labour, particularly in the informal mining sector.
The law allows minors to work seven hours a day, interrupted by one hour of paid rest. Child labor was a serious problem, especially in the agricultural and pastoral sectors where the practice was common. Most child labor occurred in the informal sector, including menial jobs that the government did not have the resources to comprehensively monitor.
The government did not effectively enforce labor laws and regulations, and penalties in the form of fines were rarely imposed and were insufficient to deter violations. Normally, the High Council for Salaries of the Ministry of Cabinet Affairs determines the minimum wage for the public sector. The minimum monthly salary in the private sector is determined by agreements between individual industries and the High Salary Board, and varied between industries.
Safety laws do not apply to domestic servants; casual workers; agricultural workers other than those employed in the operation, repair and maintenance of agricultural machinery; businesses that process or market agricultural products such as cotton gins or dairy product factories; jobs related to the administration of agricultural projects, including office work, accounting, storage, gardening and animal husbandry; or family members of an employee who live with the employee and who are wholly or partially dependent on him for their livelihood.
