Ed Husain: Where is the Muslim anger over Darfur?

As war raged in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, people around the world called for international intervention to stop the shelling of civilians. In January this year, millions shared similar feelings of horror and anger witnessing the bloodshed in Gaza. Both events were especially painful to Muslims watching other defenceless Muslims being killed. But why have the deaths of vastly more unarmed Muslims in Darfur caused so little concern among co-religionists?

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As war raged in Lebanon in the summer of 2006, people around the world called for international intervention to stop the shelling of civilians. In January this year, millions shared similar feelings of horror and anger witnessing the bloodshed in Gaza. Both events were especially painful to Muslims watching other defenceless Muslims being killed. But why have the deaths of vastly more unarmed Muslims in Darfur caused so little concern among co-religionists?

The Khartoum regime, brought to power in a highly ideological and fundamentalist Islamist coup 20 years ago, has killed an estimated 400,000 of its fellow Muslim citizens. Yet, there is near silence about massive human rights abuses in the remote western corner of Sudan. As Tareq Al-Hamed, editor of the Asharq Alaswat paper, has asked, "Are the people of Darfur not Muslims as well?"

When the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Sudanese leader, President Bashir, in March, Muslim politicians from Senegal to Malaysia rallied behind him. The same people who demand international justice for war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza abruptly changed their tune. Instead of denouncing Bashir as the architect of ethnic cleansing, they congratulated him for defying the "conspiracy" to undermine Sudan's sovereignty so the West can take its oil. The Iranian Parliamentary Speaker, Ali Larijani, said the ICC warrant was "an insult to the Muslim world".

Mercifully, the views expressed by Arab and Muslim leaders are at odds with their citizens. The Lebanese American pollster James Zogby found 80 per cent of those questioned in four Arab countries were concerned about Darfur and felt it should have more media attention. However, they were reluctant to apportion blame, and, not surprisingly, they were hostile to international intervention. Meanwhile some commentators in Muslim-majority countries are questioning their leaders' support for Bashir.

According to The Daily Star of Lebanon, "Bashir has sought to cultivate an image of himself as an Arab/African hero who is standing up for his fellow Arabs/Africans by defying the edicts of foreign 'imperial' powers."

So, are Darfuris the "wrong" kind of Muslims because they self-identify as black Africans rather than Arabs, despite widespread inter-marriage in Sudan? The Ugandan president, Yoweri Museveni, cites Arab chauvinism against Africans. I have lived in Arab countries and seen first hand the racism and bigotry that commands the minds of the Arab political class.

The Canadian academic Salim Mansur claims: "Blacks are viewed by Arabs as racially inferior, and Arab violence against blacks has a long, turbulent record."

For the Nobel Prize winning novelist Wole Soyinka, the unwillingness to confront Arab racism is rooted in the role of Arabs in the slave trade. "Arabs and Islam are guilty of the cultural and spiritual savaging of the Continent," he writes.

The Ethiopian academic Mekuria Bulcha estimates that Arab traders sold 17 million Africans to the Middle East and Asia between the sixth and twentieth centuries. Yet, there is an almost total reluctance on the part of Arab intellectuals to examine their central role in slavery, past or present. Any attempt to confront persistent Arab racism is shouted down by appeals to Arab/African solidarity against the neo-colonialist West, a sentiment that seldom moves beyond slogans.

Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan, a member of the senior council of Wahhabi clerics responsible for writing Saudi school text books, states: "Slavery is part of Islam. Slavery is part of jihad and jihad will remain as long as there is Islam. It has not been abolished."

Arab racism is familiar to African guest workers in countries like Libya and Egypt, enduring routine verbal and physical attack. Sudanese Arabs suffer from their own racial identity dilemma, viewed as black by their Egyptian neighbours to the north (Sudan is a corruption of the Egyptian word for black). I have heard the Arab Sudanese use the word for slave (abid) to the faces of their fellow citizens who self-identify as non-Arab. It is also known for Sudanese parents to tease their darker-skinned children, calling them slaves.

To be charitable, it seems that Muslim and Arab leaders wish Darfur would simply go away. Hence their enthusiasm for postponing Bashir's arrest warrant "to allow peace talks to work". Shortly after the ICC announcement, key members of the Khartoum regime attended an Arab League summit. They were confident the League would call for the cancellation of ICC jurisdiction in Darfur, conferred by the United Nations Security Council in 2005. The meeting failed to agree on anything stronger than the usual denunciations of Israel and America. Privately, Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi were urging Sudan to deal with the ICC through legal channels. The Sudanese also failed to get a solidarity summit in Khartoum. However, Bashir did enjoy a victory tour of countries where he was hailed rather than arrested.

Arab and Muslim leaders are by no means unique in failing to back up their words with action. Both the US and the UK until recently had leaders who frequently cited their Christian faith, yet did little to help Christians being persecuted in China, Nigeria, Eritrea, North Korea or Egypt.

However, "Muslim solidarity" matters for two reasons. The Khartoum dictatorship is sensitive to the opinion of Muslim and Arab leaders. A genuine peace deal will be more likely as a consequence of private pressure from Iran or Egypt rather than Canada or Sweden.

Muslims' amnesia about Darfur is also symptomatic of the malaise affecting the public face of a faith that lacks the confidence to engage in constructive debate or renewal. Until Muslims can be self-critical without being condemned as heretics, there will be atrophy where there should be vibrancy, and polarisation and extremism where there should be tolerance and inclusiveness. Darfur's tragedy is fast becoming an indelible stain on the collective name of Islam and Muslims.

Ed Husain is co-director of the Quilliam Foundation and author of The Islamist

Follow this LINK to view the piece in the Independent newspaper

Today President al-Bashir celebrates 20 years since the military coup in which he took power in Sudan. In the past two decades he has waged two civil wars, taking the lives of more than 2.6 million people, and displaced a further 6.5 million; he has funded murderous rebel armies in Chad and Uganda; and most recently he has been indicted by the international criminal court for five counts of crimes against humanity and two counts of war crime.

Few of his contemporary dictators can claim so many casualties and such opprobrium. Yet Bashir continues to manipulate even his critics in the international community, setting Russia and China against Europe and the US, and cynically lobbying the African Union and Arab League to back him against the "neocolonialist", "imperialist", "Zionist", western "conspirators". Diplomats struggle to grasp that the architect of such ubiquitous suffering and violence can, at the same time, be a highly skilled diplomat. Bashir is the master of conceding the minimum required just at the right moment to delay concerted actions, such as sanctions, against his regime.

As Bashir enters his third decade in power, we urge the UN and its member states to reflect on the horror and destruction he has brought to his country and not to allow the suffering of the Sudanese people to be forgotten. Only a coherent, concerted and consistent policy towards Bashir will deliver peace and justice to the people of Sudan.

Rebecca Tinsley Chair, Waging Peace

Gerhart Baum, Former UN special rapporteur on human rights in Sudan

Giles Fraser Canon, St Pauls

Ed Husain Quilliam Foundation

Rabbi Maurice Michaels

Stephen Mangan

Lord Alton

Peter Tatchell, human rights campaigner

Richard Freedman, Director, South African Holocaust Foundation

Helen Baxendale, actress

Caroline Moorhead, journalist and biographer

On 8 and 9 June, African Union member states are meeting to discuss withdrawing from the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a form of protest to the arrest warrant issued against Sudanese president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir.

Ahead of the meeting in Addis, African civil society groups, including the Southern Africa Litigation Centre, the Chairman of the General Council of the Bar of South Africa and Halima Bashir, Darfuri author of the novel 'Tears of the Desert', have united in condemnation of the Sudanese Government's cynical lobbying of countries to withdraw recognition of the International Criminal Court. Their condemnation is supported by several leading figures from African civil society who have signed the letter, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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Today, Bahr Idriss Abu Garda, will become the first Darfuri anti-government rebel to be charged with war crimes by the International Criminal Court. This follows the indictment of the Sudanese President in March which set legal precedent as it was the first time charges had been set against a sitting head of state. Abu Garda, leader of the Darfur rebel group the United Resistance Movement (URF), is due to appear before the Court this afternoon, to deny charges against him.

Abu Garda, a former senior member of the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), is charged with three war crimes, allegedly committed during an attack carried out on 29 September 2007, in which twelve peacekeepers were killed and eight were severely injured. Abu Garda is the first of three rebel leaders likely to be indicted by the Court in coming weeks.

Louise Roland-Gosselin, Director of Waging Peace, a human rights organisation which has been working with the International Criminal Court to bring those guilty of war crimes in Darfur to justice, and which recently revealed the widespread recruitment of child soldiers by Darfuri rebel groups, commented:

"Mr Abu Garda is the first Darfuri indictee to have voluntarily answered a summons from the ICC. By going to the Hague Abu Garda has shown that Darfuri rebels are willing to cooperate with the Court and face the charges they stand accused of. The onus is now on the Sudanese Government and in particular Sudanese President Al Bashir to follow suit”.

“There are signs of growing dissent within the Sudanese government, with some members increasingly seeing Mr Al Bashir as a liability. The cooperation of the indicted rebel is likely to lead to more pressure on the President to cooperate with the Court and hand himself over voluntarily”.

"There cannot be long term peace in Sudan without justice and the work of the ICC is critical in this respect. If the Sudanese Government is the committed partner in peace it claims to be, it must fully cooperate with the Court and hand over suspects to face trial in the Hague".

For interviews with Louise or for further information please call Frida Williams on 020 7166 5399/ 07786 311 927 or Sam Hardy on 07771 780 946.

Notes to Editor

• In March 2009, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir was indicted on war crime charges, which were the first issued by the ICC against a sitting president

• Waging Peace, submitted over 500 children’s drawing of the conflict to the ICC, which were accepted as contextual evidence in the indictment of the President.

About Waging Peace

Waging Peace campaigns against genocide and systematic human rights abuses. We have a particular focus on Africa, on atrocities overlooked by the international community and where minorities have been persecuted on racial or religious grounds. We work to secure the full implementation and enforcement of international human rights treaties wherever we campaign. Our current priority is Darfur, where we are fighting for an immediate end to the atrocities and a stable and secure peace settlement that will bring about long-term safety and security for Sudan’s citizens. Our experienced team produces regular high-level and in-depth research reports, which enable us to support the call for urgent, effective and measurable action from the UK government and the international community. http://www.wagingpeace.info/

Patrons: Martin Sheen, Dr Reverend Giles Frazer, Rabbi Maurice Michaels, Desmond Tutu

On 6 April, Darfuri asylum seeker Shoman Mohamed Ahmed (Home Office Reference number A1213639/4) was detained in Sheffield during a regular sign in. He was then informed that he would be transferred to Colnbrook detention centre and sent back to Khartoum on 9 April.

This news is of great concern to us since Mr Ahmed is from the Darfuri non-Arab Zaghawa ethnic group and as such will be at risk of persecution if returned to Sudan. While there currently is a halt on removals of non-Arab Darfuris to Khartoum, the Home Office is refusing to recognise Mr Ahmed as Darfuri, therefore allowing for his deportation.

We have collected letters from the head of the Zaghawa community in the UK, confirming that Mr Ahmed is indeed a Zaghawa. Based on our experience, and following consultations with Sudan experts and Darfuri associates of Mr Ahmed, we are convinced he is a genuine Zaghawa. His ethnicity means that if he were to be deported it would most likely lead to his arrest, torture or killing by the Sudanese authorities in Khartoum. It is not in the Darfuri community’s interest to have non-Darfuris wrongly assessed as Darfuris and their assessment of his Zaghawa linguistic and cultural knowledge must be acknowledged and trusted by the Home Office.

On 11 December 2008, Waging Peace halted the removal of another Darfuri asylum seeker, Abdulmajid Hassan Ishmael, whose ethnicity was being disputed by the Home Office. Having collected evidence from the Darfuri community as to Abdulmajid’s Darfuri ethnicity, Waging Peace halted his deportation an hour before his scheduled flight and succeeded in getting Abubaker’s ethnicity recognised by the Home Office.

This case and that of Mr Ahmed highlight the Home Office’s inability to adequately assess asylum seekers’ ethnicity. It is urgent that the Home Office improves its procedures so as to better assess asylum seekers’ ethnicity, particularly in cases like Sudan where proving one’s ethnicity is so central to a claim.

Given the Home Office’s current halt on removals of Darfuri asylum seekers, the Home Office must immediately halt all deportations of Darfuri asylum seeker whose ethnicity is being disputed until greater checks are introduced to ensure that genuine Darfuri asylum seekers are not wrongly deported.

While we will continue to try and engage with the Home Office and work with Shoman’s new lawyer in order to legally challenge the deportation, we very much need your help in raising the alarm regarding Shoman’s planned deportation tomorrow and the wider issue of the assessment of Darfuri asylum seeker’s ethnicity. Your much appreciated emails and faxes to the Home Office have already helped us stop the deportation of Darfuri asylum seekers Abdulmajid in December 2008 and Abubaker in July 2008.

We need as much pressure s as possible to make the Home Office retract its plan to deport Darfuri asylum seekers - so please take five minutes to email and phone your MP and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith.

Click HERE to take action now.

Thank you very much for supporting Mr Ahmed and the plight of Darfuri asylum seekers.

Please contact Sophie on This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 02072430300 if you would like any more information.

Will Africa Let Sudan Off the Hook?
By DESMOND TUTU

The expected issuance of an arrest warrant for President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan by the International Criminal Court tomorrow presents a stark choice for African leaders — are they on the side of justice or on the side of injustice? Are they on the side of the victim or the oppressor? The choice is clear but the answer so far from many African leaders has been shameful.

Because the victims in Sudan are African, African leaders should be the staunchest supporters of efforts to see perpetrators brought to account. Yet rather than stand by those who have suffered in Darfur, African leaders have so far rallied behind the man responsible for turning that corner of Africa into a graveyard.

In response to news last July that Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the court’s chief prosecutor, was seeking an arrest warrant for President Bashir for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, the African Union issued a communiqué to the United Nations Security Council asking it to suspend the court’s proceedings. Rather than condemn the genocide in Darfur, the organization chose to underscore its concern that African leaders are being unfairly singled out and to support President Bashir’s effort to delay court proceedings.

More recently, the Group of 77, an influential organization at the United Nations consisting of 130 developing states and including nearly every African country, gave Sudan its chairmanship. The victory came after African members endorsed Sudan’s candidacy in spite of the imminent criminal charges against its president.

I regret that the charges against President Bashir are being used to stir up the sentiment that the justice system — and in particular, the international court — is biased against Africa. Justice is in the interest of victims, and the victims of these crimes are African. To imply that the prosecution is a plot by the West is demeaning to Africans and understates the commitment to justice we have seen across the continent.

It’s worth remembering that more than 20 African countries were among the founders of the International Criminal Court, and of the 108 nations that joined the court, 30 are in Africa. That the court’s four active investigations are all in Africa is not because of prosecutorial prejudice — it is because three of the countries involved (Central African Republic, Congo and Uganda) themselves requested that the prosecutor intervene. Only the Darfur case was referred to the prosecutor by the Security Council. The prosecutor on his own initiative is considering investigations in Afghanistan, Colombia and Georgia.

African leaders argue that the court’s action will impede efforts to promote peace in Darfur. However, there can be no real peace and security until justice is enjoyed by the inhabitants of the land. There is no peace precisely because there has been no justice. As painful and inconvenient as justice may be, we have seen that the alternative — allowing accountability to fall by the wayside — is worse.

The issuance of an arrest warrant for President Bashir would be an extraordinary moment for the people of Sudan — and for those around the world who have come to doubt that powerful people and governments can be called to account for inhumane acts. African leaders should support this historic occasion, not work to subvert it.

Desmond Tutu, the former Anglican archbishop of Cape Town, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

In coming weeks, the International Criminal Court is expected to announce its decision regarding the indictement fo Sudanese President Al-Bashir.

Click here for more information on the ICC and its work in Sudan.

Click here for an outline of arguments and counter-arguments on the indictement of the Sudanese President.

On the 60th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, the Home Office is getting ready to deport to Sudan AbdulMajid Hassan Ismail, a Darfuri seeking refuge from persecution in the UK.

Mr. Ismail [Home Office reference: J1104674] is from the non-Arab Marareit tribe in Darfur and the Home Office is intending to forcibly remove him from the UK on Thursday 11 December. As a non-arab Darfur and a member of the JEM rebel group, Abdulmajid is at great risk of torture and possible death at the hands of the Sudanese authorities if returned to Sudan.

This impending deportation indicates the breaking of previous promises made by the Home Office, which announced in July 2008 that there would be no enforced removals of non-Arab Darfuri asylum seekers until the outcome of the country guidance case on Sudan is known. This case is not due to be heard until February 2009.
Mr Ismail has lived in the UK for four and a half years and has a baby boy of four months old whom he may never see again if he is deported to Khartoum tomorrow.

Waging Peace is extremely worried that if sent back to Sudan, Mr Ismail will most likely be arrested, torture or killed.

Today, on the day we celebrate 60 years since the world’s governments adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the British Government is about to violate two of the founding articles of the declaration; that  ‘No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment’  (Article 5) and that ‘Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.’ (Article 14).
On the 60th Anniversary of the UDHRs, more than any other day, governments and citizens have a responsibility to uphold the basic principles of the Declaration of Human Rights. We therefore ask that you please take action today and ensure that Mr Ismail is not sent back to Khartoum.

CLICK HERE TO WRITE TO YOUR MP, THE EXECUTIVE OF UK BORDER AGENCY LIN HOMER AND BRITISH MIDLANS DEMANDING Mr ABDULMAJID ISMAIL'S DEPORTATION BE HALTED

On 10 December 1948 governments around the world adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for all people of all nations. The fundamental value underpinning the entire UDHR proclaims “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.”

Today, Waging Peace will commemorate the 60^th Anniversary of the recognition of the inherent dignity of all humankind with an exhibition of the Darfuri children’s drawings at the prestigious Harvard University in the Carr Centre for Human Rights Policy, at the John F. Kennedy School of Government. The exhibition continues into January 2009. To see some of the drawings click on: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7QW29_9BHUs

It is a time to celebrate, but it is also a time to challenge governments who have failed to stick to the promises they made 60 years ago.