UN says Sudan not trying Darfur crimes News
UN says Sudan not trying Darfur crimes

[JURIST] The UN's special rapporteur for human rights in Sudan [JURIST news archive] said Saturday that the Sudanese government has failed to try persons responsible for war crimes in Darfur [BBC backgrounder, JURIST news archive]. Dr. Sima Samar [BBC profile 2003] said that organized sexual violence against women is continuing and the government is doing nothing to prevent it. He also reported that emergency laws in effect in Darfur and in the capital Khartoum were allowing security forces to arbitrarily detain, torture and kill civilians. Sudan says that all rights violations are investigated, but a domestic tribunal [JURIST report] set up for investigating and prosecuting war crimes committed in the Darfur region has so far tried just three cases out of 72,000 complaints filed. The national court is supposed to be a local substitute for International Criminal Court [official website], the jurisdiction of which Sudanese authorities have rejected. Reuters has more.