Asylum-seekers abused

The recent arbitrary arrest and detention of nine Sudanese refugees is inexcusable, writes Gamal Nkrumah

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The mistreatment of nine Sudanese political exiles in Egypt was widely believed to be an act of preventive detention. The detainees are Salaheddin Moussa, Nazar Hammad Abu Kur, Mohamed Hussein Abdul-Rahman, Abdullah Adam Hussein, Mohamed Abbas Al-Bashir, Hamada Dawoud Gamal, Fakhreddin Damra, Ahmed Al-Mahi, and Nazar Mohamed Ahmed.

They were arrested 2-4 April, and seven were released on 30 April. "It was like a month in hell," one of those fortunate enough to be released told Al-Ahram Weekly, displaying marks on his face and hands which he said were the results of torture.

They were thrown into cells with common criminals and drug addicts and subjected to physical assault and torture at the hands of Egyptian security forces and police. Indeed, the Sudanese asylum-seekers claimed that the police deliberately set the criminals against them, some were verbally abused and others were sexually molested by both inmates and police officers.

Worse, the Sudanese asylum-seekers were refused adequate access to legal representation. Lawyers from human rights organisations were prevented from meeting with them. Moussa and Abu Kur are still in detention, "because they spearheaded organising and meeting of the exiles. We have appealed to the prosecutor-general's office on the Sudanese asylum-seekers' behalf," lawyer Mohamed Bayoumi of the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid (AHRLA) told the Weekly.

Bayoumi stressed that the detention and deportation of the Sudanese contravenes Article 33 of the United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, 1951. Persons in danger of persecution or torture in their own countries must not be subjected to the same torture in the countries they flee to. However, the asylum-seekers fled Sudan precisely because they were being tortured by the authorities there.

The AHRLA has initiated a courageous effort to solve the problem of the refugees and ease their plight. Their activities have not won them plaudits from the press. Indeed, the press has been very biased against the Sudanese asylum-seekers. A curious article in the official daily Al-Akhbar on 27 April, three days before the asylum-seekers were released, accused the Sudanese refugees of staging a demonstration at the entrance of the UNHCR headquarters in Mohandessin. In fact, the refugees were arrested as soon as they got out of the public transit buses.

The Al-Akhbar article also claimed that the asylum-seekers were released when they still languished in jail. The asylum-seekers complained that there is an urgent need to listen to their concerns about the respect of their core values by the Egyptian public at large. They urged the media to take a more sympathetic perspective to their plight.

The asylum-seekers' Sudanese lawyer Othman Gibril heard the judge presiding over their case and was scandalised by his threatening tone. "We shall strike a deal," the judge told the detainees. "We will release you, and you will desist from talking politics and inciting the Sudanese community against the Sudanese government. You will quit drawing the attention of the public to the demands of Sudanese political activists resident in Egypt."

Gibril believes that the entire event was a political act rather than a case of racial discrimination or merely bungling by the authorities, that the detention of the nine men was a direct result of the collaboration between the Egyptian and Sudanese governments, and that the current rapprochement between Cairo and Khartoum is directly connected to the detention of Sudanese political exiles. Indeed, both Cairo and Khartoum seem to suspect that the Sudanese political exiles are fomenting trouble among the large Sudanese refugee population in Egypt, a charge the asylum- seekers deny.

Be that as it may, the judge's barely-veiled threats obviously yielded results. The detainees agreed to tone down their political message and they were released.

Gibril strongly believes that the move by the Egyptian authorities to round up political exiles regarded as ring leaders was a preventive move. Neither the Sudanese nor Egyptian authorities want to see a repeat of the sit-in protests that led to the macabre massacre in the Mustafa Mahmoud Mosque in the Giza suburb of Mohandessin.

Bayoumi explained that the threat of political activism by Sudanese asylum-seekers in Egypt was grossly exaggerated by the authorities in both countries. The real danger is that such abuse by the authorities will contribute to the breakdown of trust and fraternal relations between two neighbouring countries that share a unique historical bond. He stressed that the sorry episode was a case study in mutual miscomprehension and conflicting values.