LONDON — Amnesty International on Monday accused Sudan of using arrests and torture to brutally suppress dissent, days after an international court filed charges of genocide against President Omar al-Beshir.
The London-based group in a report entitled "Agents of Fear" accused Sudan's National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) of perpetrating institutionalised human rights violations "for years".
"The NISS rules Sudan by fear. The extensive, multi-pronged assault on the Sudanese people by the security services has left the critics of the government in constant fear of arrest, harassment or worse" said Erwin van der Borght, Amnesty's Africa programme director.
The report accuses the NISS of carrying out arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions, ill-treatment, unlawful killings and enforced disappearances.
"The Sudanese authorities are brutally silencing political opposition and human rights defenders in Sudan through violence and intimidation. NISS agents benefit from total impunity for the human rights violations they continue to commit".
During the first half of 2010 Amnesty International documented the arrests of at least 34 individuals by the NISS, including journalists, human rights activists and students.
AFP
