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------Original message------ From: John Ashworth <[email protected]> To: "Group" <[email protected]> Date: Saturday, March 3, 2012 10:59:58 AM GMT+0300 Subject: [sudan-john-ashworth] "Sudan: Don’t Strip Citizenship Arbitrarily" 1. Sudan: Don’t Strip Citizenship Arbitrarily Bring Nationality Law in Line with International Standards Human Rights Watch (New York, March 2, 2012) – Sudan should not strip Sudanese nationals of southern origin of their Sudanese citizenship if they are unable or unwilling to acquire South Sudanese citizenship, Human Rights Watch said today. The government should not presume that all Sudanese of southern origin are citizens of South Sudan and should revise its nationality law accordingly. People who wish to retain their Sudanese citizenship, rather than obtain South Sudanese citizenship, should be allowed to do so. South Sudan should ensure that those who wish to become South Sudanese ahead of an April deadline have access to needed documentation, Human Rights Watch said. Earlier in 2012, Sudanese authorities announced that southerners should either return to South Sudan or that they would be treated as foreigners and should adjust their legal status by April 8, at the end of a nine-month transition period following South Sudan’s independence. On February 12, Sudan and South Sudan re-affirmed the deadline in an agreement on modalities for returning people to South Sudan, but did not address the status of southerners wishing to remain citizens of Sudan. “Several hundred thousand people could lose their Sudanese citizenship, including people who have no real ties to South Sudan,” said Daniel Bekele, Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Sudan urgently needs to bring its nationality law in line with international standards so it respects the right of Sudanese citizens, regardless of ethnicity or origin, to retain their citizenship.” Although large numbers of southerners returned to South Sudan before and after the country gained its independence on July 9, 2011, an estimated 500,000 to 700,000 people of southern origin still live in Sudan. Many fled the long civil war in the south and have lived in Sudan for decades, or were born there and have few ties to South Sudan. Under Sudanese law, which was amended following South Sudan’s independence, Sudanese people automatically lose citizenship when they acquire “de jure or de facto” the “nationality of South Sudan.” The law does not state how someone can acquire this nationality de facto or how authorities should determine whether they have acquired it. South Sudan’s nationality law says people with “any parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents” born in South Sudan, or who belong to any southern ethnic group, are eligible for nationality. Statements and actions of Sudanese government officials indicate that they are reading these laws to mean that anyone living in Sudan with even one great-grandparent born in South Sudan will lose their Sudanese citizenship, irrespective of whether they have acquired – or want to acquire – South Sudanese citizenship. “The fact that a person is eligible to be a citizen of South Sudan is not to say he or she has acquired South Sudanese citizenship,” Bekele said. “Sudan’s Nationality Act should be amended to remove any suggestion that a person can acquire de facto South Sudanese citizenship and no Sudanese official should refuse to recognize the Sudanese citizenship of any southerner unless they can show that the person has actually acquired South Sudanese citizenship.” There are signs that Sudanese authorities have already begun to strip people of their citizenship, in violation of international law. In some cases they have refused to issue the new Sudanese national number to people because of their southern roots. The number is a required proof of identity for all Sudanese citizens. In one example reported to Human Rights Watch, a woman of mixed heritage, whose Dinka grandparents emigrated to Omdurman, Sudan’s second-largest city, in the 19th century, was refused a Sudanese national identity card based on the nationality law. As she does not have South Sudanese citizenship, the decision effectively leaves her stateless. In another case reported by local media in December, authorities sentenced a man and his sister to a month in prison and a fine for attempting to obtain a Sudanese nationality card because although their father was Sudanese, their mother was from South Sudan. At the same time, hostile rhetoric from Sudanese government officials toward southerners, which began in the period leading up to the referendum, has stoked fears that large numbers of southerners will be expelled after April 8. President Omar Al-Bashir, who began calling southerners “foreign” during the referendum, has repeatedly vowed that Sudan’s new constitution will not provide any protections for non-Muslims or diversity, a threat that is widely understood in Sudan as directed against southerners and other ethnic minorities, many of whom are Christians. The government also fired southern government employees ahead of the South’s independence and closed southern newspapers in September. The two governments have consistently failed to guarantee southerners basic rights in the event of the South’s separation from Sudan. During the six-year transition period under the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended the civil war, Sudan and its southern counterpart, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), rejected dual citizenship or any preferential status for each other’s minority populations. They failed to act despite repeated calls for such protections ahead of the January 2011 referendum on southern independence, and remain deadlocked on this issue. Although under international law, states have a right to control granting of citizenship, and the entry to and residency of non-citizens in their territory, a state can do so only subject to its human rights obligations. This prohibits a state from acting in a discriminatory or arbitrary manner that would result in leaving a person stateless and requires respect for the rights a person has acquired due to strong personal or family ties in the territory. International law also prohibits mass expulsions and forced evictions. The United Nations Draft Articles on Nationality of Natural Persons in relation to the Succession of States, taking into account international law in respect of the prevention of statelessness, sets out the obligations of states to its citizens and residents in territories affected by succession. States should avoid making people who live in their territory stateless; they should not make arbitrary or discriminatory decisions on nationality and citizenship, and should take into consideration the will of the people. If an existing nationality is to be revoked upon acquisition of the nationality of the successor state, this can happen only after acquisition of the nationality, and it should not happen to those who are habitual residents in the predecessor state – in this case Sudan. People who are eligible for South Sudanese citizenship but who have spent all or a substantial part of their lives in Sudan have interests based on family ties or other personal, social, cultural, and economic relations that need to be protected, Human Rights Watch said. Arbitrarily stripping them of their citizenship, especially in cases where this results in statelessness, violates human rights standards. Sudan should amend its nationality law to prevent people from becoming stateless and to ensure that the nationality criteria conform to international standards such as not excluding people on the basis of ethnicity, Human Rights Watch said. Sudan is also a party to the Convention on Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, which guarantees equality between citizens and non-citizens in all core human rights. Therefore, anyone living in Sudan regardless of citizenship should be entitled to equal protection of basic civil, political, economic, social, and cultural rights, Human Rights Watch said. South Sudan, which has yet to provide consular services in Sudan, should also take steps to make sure anyone who is eligible for South Sudanese citizenship, and who wants it, can obtain nationality documents, said Human Rights Watch. “No one in Sudan should be uprooted just so the government can prove a political point,” Bekele said. “Sudan should treat all its people with dignity and respect their rights.” For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Sudan, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/en/africa/sudan For more information, please contact: In New York, Jehanne Henry (English, French): +1-212-216-1291; or +1-917-443-2724 (mobile); or [email protected] In Washington, DC, Leslie Lefkow (English): +1-202-612-4354; or +1-646-220-3522 (mobile); or [email protected] In Paris, Jean-Marie Fardeau (French, English, Portuguese): +33-143-59-55-31; or +33-6-45-85-24-87 (mobile); or [email protected] In Brussels, Lotte Leicht (English, French, German, Danish): +32-2-737-1482; or +32-47-568-1708; or [email protected] http://www.sudantribune.com/Sudan-Don-t-Strip-Citizenship,41778 END1 2. SUDAN: South Sudanese Leave Khartoum By Train KHARTOUM, March 02, 2012 (Catholic Information Service for Africa) -An International Organization for Migration (IOM) -assisted 60-carriage train carrying 1,400 South Sudanese returnees left Khartoum on Thursday March 01, on a 10-day journey to Aweil and Wau in the Republic of South Sudan. This is the first train to leave Khartoum since the Governments of Sudan and South Sudan signed a memorandum of understanding in early February, which outlined a voluntary, safe and dignified return process. There are more than half a million South Sudanese residing in the Republic of Sudan, who are required to leave the country by early next month or seek to regularize their residence status. The majority are expected to opt for eventual return to South Sudan, following the country's declaration of independence in July last year. Most of the 1,400 passengers on the train have been living in open areas across Khartoum for more than a year, waiting for a government-assisted transportation to South Sudan. IOM has been supporting both governments by facilitating the voluntary movement of stranded and vulnerable South Sudanese. In 2011, it helped some 23,000 South Sudanese residing in Sudan to return home by barge, train and air. The Organization also assisted 16, 500 other returnees reach their final destinations after being stranded inside South Sudan. Once in South Sudan, the returnees will receive food, water, medical attention and shelter at the IOM transit centres in Aweil and Wau. They will also be provided with onward transportation assistance to their final destination if required. During the month of March, IOM will continue airlift operations to Wau, Aweil and Juba, for extremely vulnerable individuals. These include elderly and disabled people, pregnant women and people with serious medical conditions, who are not fit to travel on the trains. IOM is also working with the two governments and partners on an operational plan to manage the large-scale returns and is advocating for the extension of the April 8th deadline which is rapidly approaching. It says it is important to have enough time to organise such a large scale flow, given the logistical and infrastructure challenges. The current train movement has been organized in partnership with Sudan's IDP Centre, the Commission for Voluntary and Humanitarian Works (CVHW), Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC), UNHCR and UNICEF. Transportation of South Sudanese from Sudan is being funded by the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). END2 3. Returnee train departs Sudan capital for newly independent south By Associated Press, Published: March 2, Washington Post KHARTOUM, Sudan — A 60-car train carrying 1,400 southern Sudanese stranded in the north by their homeland’s declaration of independence has left Khartoum for the south, the International Organization for Migration said Friday. The passengers are among hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants expected to make the arduous journey in the months ahead. Millions of southerners fled to northern Sudan during the 22-year war that led to South Sudan’s independence in July of last year. Khartoum ruled after negotiations with South Sudan that all southerners living illegally in the north — an estimated 500,000 — would either regularize their status or depart for the south by April 8. The IOM said the train departed Khartoum on Thursday. Another 500 southerners will be picked up in the town of Kosti south of Khartoum. All told, the journey of over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) across desert, scrubland and savannah is expected to take 10 days. Both groups had been camped out in open lots. The IOM said the passengers were carrying a “huge amount of luggage ... including building materials, household items and personal effects — all needed to help them rebuild their lives in the South.” The IOM says that it expects a “majority” of the half million southerners it says lives in Khartoum will opt to return. But many southerners say privately that they hope to stay in the north. Many were born or have lived for decades in Khartoum, and say they feel cut off from the south’s traditional tribal society. Thousands of people have moved in both directions since the war, which began in 1983, ended in 2005. The IOM says that in 2011, it helped some 23,000 South Sudanese residing in northern Sudan to return home by barge, train and air. The organization also assisted 16,500 others to depart South Sudan for various locations. http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/refugee-train-departs-sudan-capital-for-newly-independent-south/2012/03/02/gIQAzAFMmR_story.html END3 ______________________ John Ashworth Sudan, South Sudan Advisor [email protected] +254 725 926 297 (Kenya mobile) +211 919 695 362 (South Sudan mobile) +27 82 050 1235 (South Africa mobile) +44 750 304 1790 (UK/international) +88 216 4334 0735 (Thuraya satphone) PO Box 52002 - 00200, Nairobi, Kenya This is a personal e-mail address and the contents do not necessarily reflect the views of any organisation -- The content of this message does not necessarily reflect John Ashworth's views. Unless explicitly stated otherwise, John Ashworth is not the author of the content and the source is always cited. You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "sudan-john-ashworth" group. 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