African Commission Urges Reforms to Address Root Causes of Torture and Other Grave Violations in Sudan

The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (African Commission) has recently made public three decisions finding Sudan responsible for grave violations. The long-awaited decisions, which relate to events between 2011 and 2014, identify key structural drivers of torture and other serious human rights violations in Sudan and call on the Sudanese authorities to implement urgent legal and institutional reforms. 

The African Commission made the following findings: 

1. Magdy el-Baghdady (represented by REDRESS) v Sudan: Sudan is responsible for the torture of Magdy, a British citizen who was detained incommunicado at Kober Prison for 78 days. The African Commission found that Sudan had failed to investigate, prosecute, and punish the individuals responsible, demonstrating “a lack of commitment to upholding justice and accountability” and “perpetuat[ing] a culture of impunity.”
2. Sudanese Civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile (represented by REDRESS, Sudan Democracy First Group, Human Rights Watch, INTERIGHTS, and the Enough Project) v Sudan: Sudan is responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, conflict-related sexual violence, and enforced disappearances perpetrated against the Nuba people in South Kordofan (from June 2011) and Blue Nile (from September 2011). These violations were ostensibly based on their purported affiliation with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North. The African Commission found that the Sudanese authorities’ scorched earth tactics – which also included bombing and shelling civilian areas, as well as burning civilians alive – amounted to a discriminatory campaign targeting the Nuba as a people. The Sudanese authorities were also found responsible for forced displacement and for failing to investigate the violations and provide compensation to the victims. 
3. Mariam Ibraheem and three others (represented by REDRESS, the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, the Sudanese Organisation for Development and Rehabilitation, the Sudanese Human Rights Initiative, and the Justice Centre) v Sudan: Sudan is responsible for the ill-treatment of Mariam, who was sentenced to death for apostasy and corporal punishment of 100 lashes for adultery because, as a Christian woman and the daughter of a Muslim man, she married a Christian man. She was detained while pregnant in Omdurman’s Women Prison in inhuman conditions with her infant son and following her birth, with her newborn daughter. She was detained for over four months, most of the time shackled, including while giving birth to her daughter. The African Commission found violations to Mariam’s rights to non-discrimination, health (including that of Mariam’s children while in detention), a fair trial, and freedom of religion – among others. 

While the underlying facts each occurred under the former Omar al-Bashir regime, the African Commission’s analysis and recommendations remain highly relevant to the ongoing armed conflict and human rights catastrophe in Sudan. 

FFM Mandate Extension 

In each case, the African Commission found that the Sudanese authorities had failed to take any credible steps to conduct a prompt, impartial, and independent investigation. While the de facto authorities are now notionally led by Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and not al-Bashir, much of their leadership, attitudes, and tactics remain unchanged. National authorities continue to lack the credibility, impartiality, capacity, resource, track-record, and survivor trust to investigate ongoing international crimes being committed across the country. For this reason, REDRESS and other civil society organisations have urged the UN Human Rights Council to extend the mandate of the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan (FFM) for at least two years. The FFM is tasked with investigating the ongoing violations since 15 April 2023, and their root causes. 

Immunities 

The African Commission found that, in each case, there were significant legal and practical barriers to holding perpetrators accountable, not least the lack of commitment of the Sudanese de facto authorities to genuinely investigate the violations. Alongside making orders for the authorities to properly criminalise torture and rape, provide for basic anti-torture and due process safeguards, and implement institutional and security sector reforms, the African Commission focused particularly on the need to combat impunity by repealing immunity provisions. In all three cases, broad statutory immunities effectively precluded any national investigation and prosecution of torture or other violations by the security, police and military forces. 

The key perpetrators in Magdy’s and Mariam’s cases were members of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) who benefited from a near-blanket immunity under Article 52 of the National Security Act 2010. The NISS were also implicated in the South Kordofan and Blue Nile case. 

The former transitional government took steps in 2020 that would – exceptionally – address some of the African Commission’s orders. In particular, they technically repealed the NISS’ immunities and curtailed their search and arrest powers. However, having been rebranded as the General Intelligence Service (GIS) under the 2019 Constitutional Declaration, and following the October 2021 coup, the GIS’ repressive powers have been gradually bolstered. After the start of the ongoing armed conflict in Sudan, the de facto authorities enacted the General Intelligence Service Law (Amendment) 2024, re-introducing new sweeping immunities and broad powers of arrest and detention. 

While the Sudanese authorities have recently urged the African Union to reinstate Sudan’s membership (which was suspended following the October 2021 coup), their role in the ongoing human rights and humanitarian catastrophe in Sudan would suggest indifference, if not contempt, for both their obligations under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (which the authorities continue to routinely breach) as well as the jurisprudence of one of the African Union’s main organs. 

Discriminatory Torture 

The African Commission’s analysis in all three cases indicates a pronounced discriminatory component to the torture/ill-treatment. Ongoing violence perpetrated by the Rapid Support Forces, Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and their allied militias must be situated within this context as expressions of racial and gender-based discrimination, which has been long institutionalised in Sudan as a means of social control. In South Kordofan, the Nuba communities victimised by the SAF in the 2010s have been revictimised at various stages of the ongoing conflict by the warring parties. The tactics deployed back then – including mass arbitrary detention, deliberate and indiscriminate attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, and restricting humanitarian aid routes – have come to be repeated again. Any strategy for long-term peace in Sudan must engage with this cycle of marginalisation, discrimination, and victimisation as an absolute priority. 

Reparation 

Finally, the African Commission in all three cases ordered forms of reparation, including monetary compensation, legal/institutional reforms as guarantees of non-repetition, and public apologies. As the conflict evolves, the issue of quantifying, financing, and implementing reparation will no doubt be prominent. These decisions should serve as a reminder to decisionmakers that for many survivors, the harms they have suffered since 15 April 2023 are the deepening of much older, unremedied wounds. A comprehensive, survivor-centred approach to transitional justice must address this. 

Read the Decisions 

Magdy Moustafa el-Baghdady (represented by REDRESS) submitted a complaint against Sudan on 25 October 2013 (Communication 476/14). The African Commission adopted its merits decision during the 80th Ordinary Session of the African Commission, held virtually from 24 July to 2 August 2024. The decision was communicated to REDRESS on 17 July 2025. The merits decision can be read in full here. 

REDRESS, Sudan Democracy First Group, Human Rights Watch, INTERIGHTS and the Enough Project submitted complaints against Sudan on behalf of Sudanese civilians in South Kordofan and Blue Nile on 21 July 2011 and 23 April 2012 (Communication 402/11 & 420/12). The African Commission adopted its merits decisions during the 74th Ordinary Session of the African Commission, held virtually from 21 February to 7 March 2023. The decision was communicated to REDRESS on 30 July 2025. The merits decision can be read in full here. 

Mariam Ibraheem, Daniel Wani, Martin Wani, and Maya Wani (represented by REDRESS, the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies, the Sudanese Organisation for Development and Rehabilitation, the Sudanese Human Rights Initiative, and the Justice Centre) submitted a complaint against Sudan on 2 June 2014 (Communication 471/14). The law firm Three Crowns assisted pro bono in preparing the merits submission. The African Commission adopted its merits decision during the 78th Ordinary Session of the African Commission, held virtually from 23 February to 8 March 2024. The decision was communicated to REDRESS on 1 August 2025. The merits decision can be read in full here. 

In 2023, REDRESS also received notification of two decisions against Sudan decided by the African Commission in 2022, in the cases of Amin Mekki Medani and Farouk Abu Eissa, and S.I. These conclude to violations by the Sudanese State, and similar guarantees of non-repetition as those laid out above. 

Photo by: Reuters/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah