University lecturer and activist Sidig Noreen Ali Abdalla has been detained incommunicado without legal charges for more than four months, having not being allowed to contact a lawyer or his family since being detained by the Sudan National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) on January 16, 2014.
Professor Noreen is a lecturer at West Kordofan University, and the supervisor of the Greater Darfur Students’ Association. In January, NISS officers arrested Professor Noreen while he was taking one of his four children for treatments at a local hospital. He was neither charged with a crime nor allowed to contact a lawyer or his family. He reportedly remains detained at El Obeid prison.
Scholars at Risk is concerned about the incommunicado detention of a professor without charge. State officials have a responsibility not to interfere with a scholar’s expressive activity or association with student bodies in university, so long as such conduct is undertaken peacefully and responsibly. In addition to the harm to the immediate victim, such incidents undermine institutional autonomy, academic freedom and democratic society generally.
Sources:
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article49921
http://www.acjps.org/?p=1741
http://unmiss.unmissions.org/Portals/unmiss/MMR/12-Feb%202014%20-%20Afternoon%20Media%20Monitoring%20Report.pdf
http://www.opendemocracy.net/arab-awakening/reem-abbas/clampdown-on-universities-in-sudan
http://www.acjps.org/?p=1935