Khartoum — The head of the European Union mission to Sudan, Wolfram Vetter, has expressed deep concern over reports that two women have been sentenced to death by stoning, warning that confirmation of the rulings would represent a "dangerous return to extremism" within the judicial system.
He said such judgments would indicate the Sudanese legal system is failing in its duty to protect the rights and dignity of women and girls and would place the country in violation of international conventions.
The sentences were reportedly issued in Khartoum and El Gedaref.
Women's rights activist Dr Neamat Koko condemned the rulings as "pre-Islamic" and unlawful in comments to Radio Dabanga. She said the decisions were unsurprising given what she described as the destruction of Sudan's state institutions.
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According to Koko, the current judiciary lacks institutional legitimacy and is operating according to individual judges' interpretations rather than recognised legal standards.
Separately, lawyer and human rights advocate Rehab El Mubarak from the Emergency Lawyers group told Radio Dabanga that justice institutions in areas controlled by the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces are suffering severe dysfunction.
She alleged thousands of detainees are being held in RSF prisons in "tragic conditions" under strict secrecy.
El Mubarak also criticised the expansion of what is known as the "strange faces law" in army-held areas, saying Sudanese authorities' actions had extended beyond the country's borders through informants, leading to the detention of Sudanese nationals working in police institutions in an unnamed Arab state.
In a separate statement, the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA Network) has added its voice of condemnation. "At a time when women and girls are already facing war, displacement, and deep insecurity, adding such punitive measures only worsens an already horrific reality. These sentences are a direct result of morality laws embedded in Sudan's Criminal Act of 1991, a legal framework that continues to disproportionately punish and endanger women and girls... Sudan's Criminal Act must be fundamentally reformed...
Background:
As previously reported by Radio Dabanga, activists and human rights defenders say that two women, from El Gedaref and Blue Nile respectively, are being detained in Omdurman prison in Sudan, sentenced to death by stoning. The women are reportedly without legal representation amid the collapse of the justice system, and the restriction of the work of legal aid organisations. The activists highlight that the women's situation "requires urgent and effective solidarity".
During an e-safari seminar organised by the No to the Oppression of Women Initiative earlier this month to discuss the situation of women in wars, the rights activists said that women in areas controlled by the de facto authorities are subjected to double violations compared to the situation before the war, in light of the application of laws that criminalise women and are used to punish them socially and legally.
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