News: Sudanese Government Closes Down the Gender Centre in Khartoum.

*Noticias: El Gobierno de Sudán cierra Centro de Géneros en Khartoum.

*Nouvelles: Le gouvernement du Soudan ferme un centre pour la promotion de
la condition féminine à Khartoum.

Sudan Women Alliance
Press Release 14/10/01

On Thursday October 11th Ms. Omaima Al Mardi, Director of the Gender Centre
went to work as usual, to find out that the office has been occupied by
security agents who ordered her to close the Centre and leave immediately!
As
usual, the security agents did not even provide an explanation for this
action and the Centre remains closed until this moment! Threatened by what
it stands for, the Government of Sudan has targeted the Gender Centre in the
past, interrupting a number of its activities. On June 23rd, 2001 the
Sudanese authorities brutally interrupted a workshop on "Democracy and
Gender
Issues" organised by the Gender Centre. All participants in the workshop
were
cruelly interrogated about their political affiliations and their addresses
were taken. Four participants and speakers, including staff of the Gender
Centre were arrested. The Sudan Women Alliance condemns this action and
demands that the government of Sudan keep its hands off the Gender Centre.
During the past week the Government of Sudan has closed down a number of
Civil Society Organisations including the Sudanese Studies Centre, Abdel
Karim Mirghani Centre, Abdel Magid Imam Centre and Al Bashir Al Rayyah
Library. By closing down the few Centres that refuse to propagate NIF's
lies,
the government thinks it can imprison the minds of Sudanese people in its
fanatic and narrow world perspective. Since it assumed power via a coup in
1989, the fanatic government in Khartoum has severely curtailed the rights
and freedoms of women given its conservative gender ideology. It has
detained, tortured and harassed women, imposed a compulsory dress code, and
has used women as tools of ethnic cleansing in Southern Sudan, the Nuba
Mountains and the Blue Nile area. This serious incident only adds to the
regime's shameful record of intolerance, suppression of the freedom of
expression and fear of anything that is related to women's rights. We
appeal
to the local, regional and international women's movement and human rights
movement and to the international community at large to express its
solidarity with and support for Sudanese women and human rights activists
who
are bravely confronting the regime's continuous onslaught on women's rights
and intellectual freedoms. Write to your government(s), to the Sudanese
missions abroad and to the Government of Sudan and demand that the Gender
Centre and other Centres closed by the Government of Sudan resume its
activities immediately. For such outrageous attitude should not be
tolerated.

Sudan Women Alliance is a women's solidarity group that was established in
1995. It has branches in and outside Sudan and works in a decentralised
manner. It aims at empowering women in the context of Democracy and Social
Justice. SWA The Pankhurst Women's Centre 60-62 Nelson Street Chorlton On
Medlock Manchester M13-9WP e-mail: [email protected] web-site:
www.swa95.org