Human rights activist Ibrahim Alsafi recently joined a Panic Button training of trainers in Uganda and has since delivered trainings to fellow activists in the Girifna student movement. Ibrahim describes the human rights situation in Sudan and how he hopes Panic Button will help Girifna respond to cases of unlawful detention.
A few weeks ago, I was sitting with some activist friends from Khartoum, who had recently been released from detention for organizing and participating in protests after a student from Khartoum University was killed by supporters of the ruling party.
The killing incident wasn’t the first in the history of the student movement, and unlawful detention happens every day in our country. We do our best to release those who have been detained by influencing the government, by protesting and by doing whatever we can.
What was really scary is that while in detention my friends had met four students from another university who had been there for several months without anyone knowing anything about them or working to get them released.
This is only one case of unknown detainees. How many others don’t we know about? Anything might happen to them because no one would know!
Just days after this, I received an invitation from Amnesty International to meet the Panic Button team, and I felt finally that someone is doing something about it. It was so easy to learn how the app works. Everyone who might face danger in their work needs to have the application on his or her phone: activists, human rights defenders, students, lawyers, everyone back home in Sudan must have it.
Now we are giving Panic Button trainings to activists within the student movement in Sudan. I hope this will help to ensure we do not miss future cases of unlawful detention and that we can respond to help more people.
