On the Eve of Torture Survivors Day

Torture continued to prevail around the globe not only by some rogue governments but also by some militia groups that claim to fight for justice in their own teritories.


Boko Haram is one example of an absurd group that claimed to fight for justice in Nigeria. Abducting innocent people including young middle school girls and torturing and bombing their teachers in the name of 'islamic' agenda was the way they introduced themselves to the world.
 

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ISIS (Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) is another terrorist group that specialized in torturing people in the name of implementing Islamic Sharia Laws. Chopping heads, hands, and foot, and flogging people was another absurd way of introducing their image of Islamic State in Syria and other areas they controlled in Iraq.


In Libya, the armed groups continued to terrorize civilians in every single region especially those who call for democratic society. On the eve of the United Nations' Day for Torture Survivors they brutally killed one of the prominent human rights activists, Ms. Salwa Bughaighis, that she called for banning armed militias in Libya.

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In Sudan, the country that has been ruled under another Islamic military group since 1989, the mass human rights violations continued to prevail. Bombing civilians in Darfur, Nuba Mountains, and Blue Nile region brought a lot of concern around the world especially that many kids who escaped to the mountains continued to live in caves to get protection from air raids.

Refugees who took refuge in Sudan suffered in particular a new wave of torture conducted by government-affliated thugs to get ransom for their release. A disturbing video (see below) was part of report issued by Human Rights Watch on the plight of Eritrean refugees in Sudan and Egypt.

Ghost Houses & Boko Haram: A Conversation

The popular ACTV show "Conversation" hosted Mohamed Elgadi, a co-founder of GATS, and Martha Spiegelman, Amnesty International in Amherst to speak about the status of human rights and torture worldwide.

Why torture is wrong, why it doesn't work, why/how it brings wrong intelligence, what is the connection between Boko Haram in Nigeria and the torture establishment in Sudan? These were just a few of the the topics discussed in the 30-min show.

The program shed light on the hot case of Meriam Ibrahim, a Christian mother whom accused of apostasy in Sudan and sentenced to death (thanks to the international pressure on the regime that forced her release today).

The concealed connection between the Islamists of Sudan and Nigeria was exposed at the ACTV show when Mohamed Elgadi spoke on the training of number of Boko Haram leaders in Sudan @ the African Islamic University in Khartoum.

The show can be watched here in this link 

Ghost Houses Wiki page

SUDAN STUDIES ASSOCIATION,


 33rd Annual Conference



Sudan and South Sudan: Boundaries, Borders and the Challenges of Nationhood



 
 University of San Francisco, CA

May 23rd, 24th and 25th 2014


Using Collaborative Data to Expose Torture in Sudan

Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, Springfield College (MA)

Nahid Abunama-Elgadi, Amnesty International (CA)

  

When you Google ‘Ghost Houses in Sudan’ the first pages to appear are Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI), and Group Against Torture in Sudan (GATS). However, there is no information available on Wikipedia (Wiki); one of the world’s largest applications for collaborative data. As two human rights activists in the education field, we feel it is necessary to launch a Wiki page to expose this crime worldwide and make authentic data available to researchers in academia.

  

Why are they called Ghost Houses? Who runs them? Are they mobile or permanent fixtures? What’s the justification of torture presented by the regime from an Islamic viewpoint? Who are the torturers? Do Ghost Houses continue to exist? These are just a few of the many questions the immigration lawyers and judges found themselves struggling with. Having this page will connect the US Immigration and Custom Enforcement (formerly known as INS) to torture survivors and in turn help its officers better understanding the asylum seekers and provide them with appropriate needed assistance.

From the notorious ‘White House’ in Juba to the infamous ‘Citibank Ghost House’ in Khartoum, the ‘Holy Qur’an College’s Ghost House’ in Omdurman to the Ghost House inside the mosque of the HQ for Security Apparatus in Nyala, S. Darfur; the places of government-organized torture centers in Sudan will be examined in this paper. We hope that in having a global page of collective data, testimonials, location maps and history briefings, we will be able to help researchers, and shed more lights on this crime.