The Darfur Bar Association (DBA, ) is a

Sudan Sudan, officially the Republic of the Sudan, is a country in Northeast Africa. It borders the Central African Republic to the southwest, Chad to the west, Libya to the northwest, Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the east, Eritrea and Ethiopi ...

ese lawyers' organisation created in 1995. In 2020, the group received the Democracy Award for supporting marginalized people in advocating for their rights and providing legal assistance to vulnerable activists before and during protests in Sudan.

Origin

The Darfur Bar Association was created in 1995 and , aims at providing legal support in relation to human rights violations in

Darfur Darfur ( ; ) is a region of western Sudan. ''Dār'' is an Arabic word meaning "home f – the region was named Dardaju () while ruled by the Daju, who migrated from Meroë , and it was renamed Dartunjur () when the Tunjur ruled the area. ...

and the rest of

. , it had a membership of 535 lawyers.

2013 Darfur student arrests

In August 2018, during the 30-year rule of

Omar al-Bashir Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir (born 1 January 1944) is a Sudanese former military officer and politician who served as Head of state of Sudan, Sudan's head of state under various titles from 1989 until 2019, when he was deposed in 2019 Sudanese c ...

, the Darfur Bar Association stated the security services deliberately prosecuted students and held them under detention for long periods of time in order to discourage them from human rights related activities. According to the DBA, the security services arbitrarily detained students, and after students had been tortured while in detention and been found "not guilty" in court, again arbitrarily re-arrested them. The DBA gave the example of five students of Sudan University, Alnilin University and Omdurman Ahlia University who were

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons including corporal punishment, punishment, forced confession, extracting a confession, interrogational torture, interrogation for information, or intimid ...

d using electric batons, tapes, racist insults, and were blindfolded for two days, and underwent the re-arrest procedure in June and July 2013. The five students were again found not guilty on 18 August 2013 by a Central Khartoum criminal court judge, Osama Ahmed Abdalla. The DBA promised to take "appropriate and necessary measures" to obtain justice for the students.

2018–19 Sudanese protests

Following the 3 June 2019

Khartoum massacre The Khartoum massacre occurred on 3 June 2019, when the armed forces of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council, headed by the Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah Abdelrahman Burhan of the Sudan Armed Forces and his deputy, Mohamed Hamdan Daga ...

that occurred during the 2018–19 Sudanese protests, the Darfur Bar Association created a Truth and Fact-finding Committee to investigate the massacre, primarily the incidents of rape. On 30 July, the DBA committee stated that eight rape victims were receiving psychological therapy; one in Omdurman had committed suicide as a result of the rape; one rape victim had been forced by social stigma to search for another home for her and her family. The DBA claimed that it had "ample evidence" of responsibility of the Transitional Military Council (TMC), the junta ruling Sudan at the time, for the massacre and that the "decision to disband the sit-in" took place at a meeting including all TMC members, the Attorney-General, police chiefs and security directors. The DBA committee argued that the Attorney-General enquiry was neither professional, independent nor impartial.

2019 Darfur peace negotiations

In early September 2019, the Darfur Bar Association started organising negotiations between Darfur armed movements, including the

Sudan Liberation Movement/Army The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army ( ''Ḥarakat Taḥrīr as-Sūdān''; abbreviated SLM, SLA, or SLM/A) is a Sudanese rebel group active in Darfur, Sudan. It was founded as the Darfur Liberation FrontFlint, Julie and De Waal, Alexander (20 ...

and the

Justice and Equality Movement The Justice and Equality Movement (JEM; , ') is an opposition group in Sudan founded by Khalil Ibrahim. Gibril Ibrahim has led the group since January 2012 after the death of Khalil, his brother, in December 2011. The JEM supported the removal ...

, and civilian citizens' associations, in the form of a Consultative Forum. The DBA requested that at least a quarter of the delegates to the Consultative Forum be women.

References

{{Sudanese Revolution African bar associations Organisations of the Sudanese revolution Sudanese lawyers