المجموعة السودانية لضحايا التعذيب يناير ٢٠٠٩
Date: Jan 30th, 2009
Dear President Obama,
We write to you today as part of the torture survivors’ community in the US to express our appreciation for your commitment to the standard human rights obligations. More than 400,000 torture victims are founding refuge and safe haven in the United States because of the cherished ideals and principles guaranteed by the Constitution.
Mr. President, we thank you for keeping your election campaign promises when you took action in your first day in office and decided to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Your Executive Order to ban the use of torture and inhumane and degrading treatment of detainees speaks directly to the suffering our members had to go through in the prisons of the current Sudanese regime. Waterboarding, stress positions, and hypothermia were actually on our daily torture menu with different names.
As Sudanese-Americans we are also looking forward to the changes you promised to bring about in the foreign policy toward the genocidal regime in Sudan. We call on you, Mr. President, to demonstrate your election campaign commitment to Sudan by:
* Supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC) to bring Darfur perpetrators to justice. The road to a sustainable peace in Darfur is only possible by bringing justice to the families of hundreds of thousands of victims, and millions who lost their homes and properties. We urge your administration to provide evidences to the ICC on the involvement of Albashir’s regime in planning Darfur genocide.
* Supporting the end of state-sponsored crime of torture in Sudan as part of your commitment to fight terrorism. Hundreds of Ghost Houses, i.e. torture centers, were created and put under the judiciary of the Sudanese General Security Apparatus since 1989. A large number of these Ghost Houses’ survivors currently live in the US and looking forward to this step.
* Instructing the State Department officials to stop meeting with accused torturers who personally involved in torturing some of the survivors currently live in the US. Those are specifically Major General Salah Ghosh, Head of the Intelligence; and Dr. Nafi’ Ali Nafi’, First Assistant to President Albashir and whose assigned the dossier of Darfur, and the deputy leader of the ruling National Congress Party in Sudan.
Mr. President, we understand and support the foreign policy of ‘engagement’ you promoted during the election campaign however, this is a different case. Those two persons were directly involved literally in torturing people who live here in the United States. Ethically, we should not sit with someone who literally has our blood on his hands.
Sincerely
Mohamed I. Elgadi
For/Group Against Torture in Sudan
No comments:
Post a Comment