Deadly Suspicion: Citizens Without Protection and a Powerless Justice System in Sudan
A security doctrine built on suspicion: citizens treated as permanent suspects
Amid Sudan’s all-encompassing war, the security and military doctrine governing army-affiliated agencies has reportedly undergone a profound deterioration. These bodies are alleged to have abandoned their presumed role of protecting citizens and providing security, replacing it with an approach based on absolute suspicion and a systematic presumption of guilt.
Ordinary Sudanese citizens, despite having no involvement in the armed conflict, are reportedly treated as permanent suspects and required to prove their innocence at every checkpoint and whenever they travel.
This doctrine of suspicion is said to rely neither on legally admissible grounds nor on tangible material evidence. Instead, it is allegedly administered according to the subjective judgement of officers, soldiers and mobilised volunteers operating in the field.
Any expression of peaceful political opposition, previous residence in an area controlled by the opposing side, or even an attempt to travel or flee to protect one’s family may be interpreted as evidence of “treason” or collaboration with the Rapid Support Forces. Such an approach opens the way to arbitrary arrest and immediate abuse without effective legal protection for the victim.
Identity as an offence: classifying citizens by geography and ethnicity
One of the gravest manifestations of the breakdown of justice is the growing treatment of identity as an offence punishable under unwritten rules imposed on the ground.
A citizen’s identity card, tribal affiliation or local accent may determine whether that person lives or dies, remains free or disappears into a dark detention facility.
Thousands of citizens originating from particular areas of western Sudan and living in Khartoum or the country’s central and northern states have reportedly been subjected to systematic campaigns of surveillance and targeting by military intelligence personnel and mobilised volunteers.
Homes have allegedly been raided, markets stormed, and young men abducted from public transport solely because of their ethnic background, under unsubstantiated claims that they belonged to enemy “sleeper cells”.
Such discriminatory practices undermine the principle of equal citizenship and threaten to tear Sudan’s social fabric apart in ways that may prove permanent and irreparable.
Judicial paralysis: the public prosecution service reduced to a security façade
In the face of growing security and military dominance, Sudan’s civilian judicial and legal institutions are reported to have suffered complete paralysis and an unprecedented degree of complicity.
The public prosecution service is alleged to have abandoned its constitutional and legal role as a guardian of rights and public freedoms, as well as its responsibility to oversee the legality of arrests and detention. In many cases, it has reportedly become a civilian façade used to approve and legitimise decisions taken by security agencies and military intelligence.
Prosecutors and judges are said to be unable to visit army detention facilities or investigate complaints of torture and enforced disappearance submitted by detainees’ families, fearing retaliation or accusations of insufficient national loyalty.
The collapse of the rule of law and judicial independence has turned the filing of legal complaints into a futile process. It may even expose victims’ families to further threats and financial extortion by networks of intermediaries linked to the military establishment. Justice consequently remains powerless and constrained behind the walls of the barracks that dominate the country.
Sham trials and summary executions: the disappearance of fair-trial guarantees
When military and security authorities allegedly seek to give a formal appearance of legality to the elimination of certain detainees, they are said to resort to sham military or summary proceedings that lack even the minimum domestic and international standards of a fair trial.
Defendants are reportedly denied their fundamental right to legal representation, access to the charges brought against them and the opportunity to present evidence of their innocence. Judgements are allegedly based on confessions extracted through severe torture and intimidation.
More alarming still is the reported spread of immediate summary executions carried out by officers and soldiers in the field without authorisation from any judicial authority or senior military command.
Detainees are allegedly shot in the streets or in front of passers-by, while recordings of the executions are circulated as wartime propaganda intended to spread fear.
If substantiated, such acts would constitute serious violations of international law, including the right to life and the guarantees enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. They would also demonstrate a shift towards practices operating outside institutional discipline and legal oversight.
Destroying the social fabric: the long-term consequences of discrimination and suspicion
The devastating consequences of executions and arrests based on suspicion or identity extend far beyond the immediate loss of life. They risk causing serious and lasting damage to Sudan’s social and national fabric.
When large communities spread across several regions feel systematically targeted by a military institution that is supposed to represent them all, resentment, marginalisation and the desire for retaliation inevitably deepen.
This ethnic and regional discrimination fuels reciprocal hate speech and undermines the prospects for peaceful coexistence and the construction of a state based on equal citizenship after the war.
Society may consequently fragment into isolated and antagonistic communities organised around tribal and local identities. This would leave Sudan permanently fragile, vulnerable to recurring eruptions of violence and exposed to de facto territorial division. It is the severe price the country is paying for the collapse of the military establishment’s ethical and judicial foundations.
The international human rights position: protecting civilians and breaking the cycle of impunity
In response to this alarming deterioration and the collapse of domestic justice, international human rights organisations and humanitarian actors are calling for urgent intervention to protect civilians and break a cycle of impunity that has persisted for decades.
The alleged inability or complicity of national justice mechanisms makes it necessary to activate international accountability instruments, particularly the International Criminal Court, and to expand investigations to cover alleged crimes committed in Sudanese military detention centres and on army-controlled battlefronts.
The United Nations Security Council and the African Union are being urged to take decisive action, including imposing targeted sanctions on military commanders and military intelligence officials whose direct involvement in these violations can be established.
Pressure should also be applied to open detention facilities to independent international commissions tasked with investigating the reported abuses.
Continued international silence in the face of these alleged atrocities risks being interpreted as tacit permission to perpetuate the policy of “deadly suspicion”. It may also leave the international community open to accusations that, through its inaction, it is contributing to the destruction of human dignity and justice in Sudan.
