مركز النديم لتأهيل ضحايا العنف والتعذيب

On Thursday 19/03/2009 I represented Al Nadeem centre while visiting Tamer Mohamed Abbas -a victim of Police Officer ‘A’ at Al Gameel passage- after news of the incident was published in Al Badeel newspaper.

I arrived at Port Said General Hospital with Mr Hany El Gebaly and Ms. Hanem Ibrahim who are both lawyers from the Mousawa Centre for Human Rights in Port Said. This was at about 4:00PM during the hospital’s official visiting hours.

After 10 minutes a doctor from the hospital arrived and introduced himself to us as the Vice President of the hospital, a female doctor introduced herself while the young male doctor started accusing us of being “unwanted” visitors, and saying that we had to follow official procedure. I was surprised, as I came in through the main entrance and not through the window. We came during official visiting hours and no other visitors were being treated the same way. The doctor moved to the side and started talking on his mobile phone.

After a few minutes he disappeared and two men came, one of whom is a former police officer who had been tried and convicted of attempted murder in the town of Ismailia. He was sentenced to three years imprisonment but the victim dropped the charges and he did not complete serving one year of his sentence. The hospital employed him in security regardless of his bad record.

He headed towards Tamer’s visitors, screaming and cursing at Mr Hany El Gebaly. A formal complaint was made of this incident at the prosecutor’s office.

This is a new attempt to harass Human Rights Activists, leading them in to a quarrel which can lead to injury.

This is an official complaint from the doctor against his female colleague who was fulfilling her humanitarian duty.

The Amel Centre for Treatment and Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture (ACTRVT) was closed down on March 4th by the Sudanese minister of Humanitarian Aid.

The closure of the centre is part of a crack down by the government of Sudan on other similar NGOs and aid agencies working in the country in response to the ICC arrest warrant issued for the Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir.

The Amel centre is an award winning IRCT (International Rehabilitation Centre for victims of Torture) member centre and provides Sudanese survivors of torture with rehabilitation services since 1999.

The Nadim centre strongly condemns the decision by the Sudanese authorities to shut down the Amel Centre and urges the Sudanese government to reverse its decision, ensure the privacy of the medical records and the safety of its members.