{"id":68424,"date":"2016-04-21T01:22:17","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T23:22:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/sudan-government-must-investigate-brutal-killing-of-18-year-old-university-student-by-intelligence-agents\/"},"modified":"2016-04-21T01:22:17","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T23:22:17","slug":"sudan-government-must-investigate-brutal-killing-of-18-year-old-university-student-by-intelligence-agents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/sudan-government-must-investigate-brutal-killing-of-18-year-old-university-student-by-intelligence-agents\/","title":{"rendered":"Sudan: Government must investigate brutal killing of 18-year-old university student by intelligence agents"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON, United Kingdom, April 20, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — <\/span><\/p>\n

The brutal killing of an 18-year-old Sudanese university student by intelligence agents yesterday must be urgently and impartially investigated, Amnesty International said today, as repression of students in the country intensifies.<\/p>\n

\n

Abubakar\u00a0Hassan Mohamed\u00a0Taha, a first year engineering student\u00a0at the University of Kordofan in Al-Obeid,\u00a0the capital of\u00a0North\u00a0Kordofan\u00a0State, died of\u00a0a gunshot wound to the head. Another 27\u00a0students\u00a0were\u00a0injured,\u00a0five\u00a0of them\u00a0seriously. It is the latest incident in a brutal crackdown against students that began in 2012 and has seen scores killed, injured or detained, sometimes incommunicado.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis\u00a0violent attack\u00a0is yet another shocking episode in\u00a0of a string of human rights violations against university students across Sudan and underlines the government\u2019s shameful determination to put out the last vestiges of dissent,\u201d\u00a0Muthoni\u00a0Wanyeki, Amnesty International\u2019s\u00a0Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reprehensible violence by state agents against the students\u00a0must be thoroughly and impartially investigated and those responsible brought to justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The students had been\u00a0marching peacefully towards the office of students\u2019\u00a0union to submit their list of\u00a0pro-opposition\u00a0candidates for union elections due to be held that day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shortly after the march had begun,\u00a0plainclothes agents of the National Intelligence Security Services (NISS) intercepted them in an attempt to stop them from taking part in the elections.<\/p>\n

One student\u00a0told Amnesty International that\u00a0he saw 15 pick-up trucks\u00a0arriving\u00a0at the university\u00a0full of\u00a0NISS agents armed with AK47 rifles and pistols, who then\u00a0started\u00a0shooting indiscriminately\u00a0at\u00a0the crowd.<\/p>\n

Last month,\u00a0security officers\u00a0beat up and fired tear gas at students at the same university, injuring 15,\u00a0during\u00a0a peaceful\u00a0demonstration\u00a0against poor\u00a0service\u00a0delivery. They arrested\u00a0seven\u00a0others.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

Background\u00a0<\/p>\n

The University of\u00a0Kordofan\u00a0Council of Deans issued a statement on 19 April\u00a0expressing regret for\u00a0theviolent incident\u00a0and acknowledging\u00a0Abubaker\u2019s\u00a0death.\u00a0However, it\u00a0made no mention of\u00a0involvement of NISS agents. Instead,\u00a0described\u00a0the incident as clashes between two rival students groups around the union elections.<\/p>\n

Amnesty International has documented an intense and sustained crackdown by the police and security forces since 2012 on the activities of students in universities across Sudan.\u00a0Over this period scores of protestors have been killed,\u00a0injured\u00a0or detained, sometimes\u00a0incommunicado.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Since January\u00a0this year, a\u00a0number of\u00a0cases of\u00a0excessive use of force\u00a0against students have been\u00a0reported\u00a0at El-Geneina\u00a0University in West Darfur\u00a0State, University of\u00a0Bakhit\u00a0El\u00a0Rhida\u00a0in White Nile\u00a0State, University of\u00a0Kordofan,Al-Zaiem\u00a0Al-Azhari\u00a0in Khartoum North\u00a0and the University of Khartoum. One student was killed\u00a0at El-Geneina\u00a0University,\u00a0and dozens of students were arrested.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON, United Kingdom, April 20, 2016\/APO (African Press Organization)\/ — The brutal killing of an 18-year-old Sudanese university student by intelligence agents yesterday must be urgently and impartially investigated, Amnesty International said today, as repression of students in the country intensifies. Abubakar\u00a0Hassan Mohamed\u00a0Taha, a first year engineering student\u00a0at the University of Kordofan in Al-Obeid,\u00a0the capital […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4584],"tags":[428,4585,830],"class_list":{"0":"post-68424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-africa-news-2","7":"tag-africa","8":"tag-apo","9":"tag-news","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}