SUDAN: Students detained and beaten

On February 11, 15 carloads of police and security forces arrived at Khartoum's Juba University and began attacking a group of students who were peacefully gathered in front of the administration building. In the ensuing battle, students set fire to five vehicles, three cafeterias and the school library. Two-hundred students were arrested, including 149 women. Following an appeal by a representative of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), the women were released that day without charges. Amnesty International reported that the male detainees were taken to unofficial security detention sites known as "ghost houses" where they were tortured and denied access to lawyers and their families. Juba University was moved to north Sudan in the late 1980s due to the conflict in the south and students are now demanding that it is relocated back to Juba, in southern Sudan.

From Green Left Weekly, February 22, 2006.

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From GLW issue 657