Sudan files defamation suit against Amnesty International

The Sudanese government has begun filing a defamation lawsuit against Amnesty International for a report on torture against political prisoners in the country, the justice minister said today.

The London-based rights group said in statement last week that eight men arrested for allegedly plotting a coup were being held in a Khartoum prison “where they have been tortured and need immediate medical attention”.

Sudanese security personnel hammered the prisoners’ nails, crushed their testicles and beat them on the head with metal rods, Amnesty said.

“We are filing a lawsuit against (Amnesty) for defamation,” Sudan’s Justice Minister Mohamed Ali al-Mardi told The Associated Press.

He did not specify with which court the government was filing the suit nor comment on Sudanese media reports that the government had asked Interpol to arrest Amnesty’s director.

A spokeswoman for the rights group, Eliane Drakopoulos, said Amnesty was aware of Sudan’s threat of legal action but had not been formally notified.

“We find it shocking that instead of initiating an investigation into these serious allegations of torture, the government is trying to silence us by initiating criminal proceedings,” Drakopoulos said.

Apart from Sudan, only two other countries, Togo and Libya, have made threats of legal action against Amnesty, said Drakopoulos. But Togo has since backed off, she added.

Khartoum’s action is “another example of Sudan’s crackdown on human rights activists”, Drakopoulos said, stating that more than 20 had been detained in recent years.

The eight men who were reportedly tortured are opposition politicians and retired army officers, part of a group of some 40 people arrested in July. The government accuses them of having conspired a “sabotage” to topple the regime with foreign help.

Officials have produced no proof of the allegations, and the detainees have not been charged, leaving most outside observers sceptical.

Amnesty said the men were tortured either to confess their role in the alleged coup or to incriminate higher ranking opposition figures.

The government has ordered a local media blackout on these arrests, calling it a matter of national security. Editors for the handful of Sudanese newspapers that had published Amnesty’s statement said they were being summoned for questioning.