EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
This submission was prepared for the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of Sudan taking place in May 2016. In it, Amnesty International evaluates the implementation of recommendations made in the previous cycle of the UPR, observing that Sudan rejected a number of important recommendations, and that it has failed to implement those it accepted, including in respect to women’s rights, freedom of expression, association and assembly, freedom of religion, and torture and other ill-treatment.
Amnesty International is concerned about the transformation of the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) into a regular armed force with no judicial oversight and accountability for abuses, responsible for arbitrary arrests, excessive use of force, and harassment, including against journalists, civil society activists and students. Freedom of religion continues to be undermined by the Sudan’s legal system under which conversion from Islam to another religion is punishable by death.
Thousands of people have been displaced by the conflicts in Darfur and other regions and face abuses by all parties to the conflicts.
In the last section, Amnesty International suggests a number of recommendations to the government to address these human rights concerns.