Sudan

January 7, 2011 (NAIROBI) – Sudan must refrain from ramping up military attacks in Darfur and guard against human rights violations during and after the referendum on south Sudan's independence, which is due to begin on Sunday, Amnesty International has demanded.

How will the outcome of the South Sudan referendum affect the prospects for women's participation and activism in the North and South?

In Abyei, women and children pay the heaviest price for the lack of healthcare

While the whole world is interested in southern Sudan's political situation ahead of the referendum on self-determination, the region is in the midst of a humanitarian and medical crisis. More than 75% of the population does not have even basic healthcare.

On January 9, a new country may be added to the world map as southern Sudanese vote on independence from their northern neighbors.

(Nairobi) - The arrest of more than 60 Sudanese women's rights activists on December 14, 2010, for peacefully protesting the lashing of a woman by police shows the urgent need to reform Sudan's public order laws and practices, Human Rights Watch said today. The system imposes illegitimate restrictions on a range of personal behavior and public expression and disproportionately targets women, Human Rights Watch said.

Khartoum, 16 Dec. (AKI) - Forty thousand women in Sudan are subject to police whippings for moral transgressions each year, a figure that came to light after a video was circulated on the Internet which showed the public thrashing of a Khartoum woman.

Sudanese feminist and political figure Mariam al-Sadiq al-Madi brought the issue to the attention of authorities, the Sudanese daily al-Sharq al-Awsat reported.

Nairobi/Khartoum - A human rights watchdog has called on Sudan to end the practice of lashing and refrain from arresting peaceful protestors, after over 44 activists were arrested at a demonstration in Khartoum.

The whole world was shocked after a video was leaked on you tube last week showing a Sudanese woman being lashed at Al Hijera police station in Omdurman, Khartoum. The woman was lashed all over her body, back, head and face while she was screaming and begging them to stop.

Khartoum, Sudan -- A YouTube video of Sudanese police officers laughing as they publicly flogged a pleading, fleeing woman has sparked outrage, prompting dozens of demonstrators to protest Tuesday outside the Justice Ministry in downtown Khartoum, authorities said.

On Christmas Eve 2008 and over the following three weeks, 865 women, men and children were savagely beaten to death and hundreds more abducted by the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in a remote corner in the north-east of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and in southern Sudan.