BY LISA MACDONALD
Osama Saddig Yousif is one of thousands of activists in the north African country of Sudan who have been arrested, jailed and tortured many times by the Islamic fundamentalist government that took power in a military coup on June 30, 1989. Last year, Yousif fled to Australia as a refugee. He is now living in Sydney, where he became an activist with the Free the Refugees Campaign.
The new constitution enacted by the National Islamic Front (NIF) after the 1989 coup in Sudan violates almost every human right recognised in international law. It makes no provision for freedom of thought or judicial independence and it eliminates the right to free education, health care and legal assistance, and children's right to welfare.
The 1989 constitution dissolved all established political organisations and prohibited the establishment of any new ones. It also dissolved all trade unions and non-religious organisations, and cancelled the licences of all media institutions and non-governmental newspapers.
The government also gave itself the constitutional right to prohibit the movement of people, the expression of any political opinion deemed in any way against the regime, the right to strike and peaceful assembly.
The conditions of life for ordinary Sudanese are miserable, says Yousif. Corruption is rife, inflation and unemployment are high, and wages are very low. The minimum wage (no more than $60 per month) is subsistence level only and most people have to work two jobs to survive.
The war in Sudan's south impacts on all Sudanese, but especially young people. Conscription has been introduced and all students are forced into military service for one year as soon as they finish high school. Constant ID card checks in the streets ensure that very few students manage to escape being sent to the war. Hundreds of students, says Yousif, have been murdered by the military for trying to escape the war.
Yousif had been a member of the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) since 1985 and had been organising high school students. Three months after the coup, he left the country to study overseas, and did not return for three years.
When he returned, he enrolled at the university, and resumed his political activity. Then, on September 2, 1995, he was arrested.
"It is very difficult to hold a meeting of more than five or six people in Sudan because others see you gathering and the security forces can find out", says Yousif. "But sometimes we have to have a big meeting. On that day, we had a meeting of all the student leaders, but the security forces found out about it and we were all arrested."
Yousif explained that when you are arrested in Sudan you are first taken to a security forces' building and then transferred to secret houses known by the people as "ghost houses".
"We spent a week in the security building without food, or showers or anything. It was very, very hard. They tortured us in a lot of different ways, like beating us with hands and sticks, and making us stand on cement in the hot sun for more than 12 hours. Sometimes they terrified us by pretending they were about to kill us.
"They asked us about our activities, if we were members of the SCP, and a lot about the party."
Yousif and his comrades were then sent to a ghost house for another week, where they continued to be interrogated and tortured. "During that time", Yousif says, "the students from all our universities were demonstrating for our release. More than 10,000 students joined the demonstration. Of course we didn't know at the time.
"More than 200 more students were arrested. Some were held and tortured for a day, some for a week or more."
The armed forces then began arresting activists from many different organisations, but focusing on suspected SCP members. "My father was arrested and we were together in prison", Yousif says with a smile.
After being transferred to prison, the student activists were separated. "They would take one of us away and torture us for two or three days, then bring us back and take another one away.
"For me it was very hard because me and my father were both in prison, but they separated us. They put me with the ordinary criminals to hurt my father, because he is a central committee member of the Communist Party. He has been arrested more than five times by this government. The first time he was in jail for two years, then later for two months, three months, eight months and so on."
"I spent four and half months in jail that time. When they released me I had to sign a statement that I would not criticise the government again.
"Of course, I continued doing my political work at the university and was arrested again on February 2, 1997. In January, the Sudanese People's Liberation Army took control of two major cities in southern Sudan and the government started arresting a lot of activists in the capital city. I was on their 'student activist list'.
"I spent three days being tortured in the security building. They interrogated me about my family's political background, about my activities for the last 10 years, which party I voted for in the general election, and lots of other details. Then they sent me to jail for three and a half months."
On May 18, in response to increasing pressure from the United Nations and human rights organisations, the regime released all political prisoners. "They do this sometimes to appear democratic and humane", Yousif says.
After Yousif's release, he continued to be harassed by the security forces. "Three or four times I was called in", he said. "Sometimes I was interrogated, tortured a little. Other times I just sat in their building, from morning to evening, just waiting. It was intimidation. I couldn't feel secure in Sudan. We activists could be arrested any time." So, in November 1998, Yousif left Sudan for Egypt where he applied for UN protection.
Activists like Yousif are put on a travel black-list. "But there is much corruption in Sudan, so I paid someone to produce travel papers for me."
Yousif says that for him it was relatively easy in Egypt. "I had relatives there I could stay with, but in general it is very hard for refugees there.
"You have to wait for one year just to get a form to apply for an interview with the UN. Then it may be three months before you get a hearing and can apply for re-settlement in another country.
"You can't get a work visa while you are waiting, but you have to work to survive, so people work illegally, which means they can be deported at any time. Rent is very expensive so people live 10 to a flat. Some women become prostitutes and some people get involved in crime. People get very exploited."
Yousif was accepted by the Australian embassy as a refugee because he had documents from a recognised human rights organisation stating that he was a political activist being persecuted in his country. But "a lot of my comrades and other activists, such as those who are not in the major cities in Sudan, do not have such documents because human rights organisations cannot gather all the information about all the activists in such a big country. These people cannot get UN protection."
Once in Australia, life became hard in a different way, Yousif says. "I had to live in one room with another man for three months. I was supposed to receive the $1200 settlement grant from Centrelink, but never got it.
"We get 500 hours of English-language classes, but 500 hours is not enough to learn a new language and not having English makes it very hard here."
Getting qualifications and jobs is also a problem, says Yousif. "The education system makes it hard for refugees to study. You have to pay very high fees and we can't get any financial help to upgrade our qualifications." As well, when Sudanese refugees have applied to study in professional areas, like engineering, "they have been told they have no chance of passing and aren't accepted".
Even if you do overcome these barriers and get a qualification, "You know that you won't get a job because of racism and language difficulties. I know one Sudanese refugee who has a PhD from Britain and was a teacher at universities in Sudan and Libya, but is now selling vegetables in Kings Cross. All the Sudanese here who have qualifications work as cleaners or the like."
Refugees who apply for asylum once they're inside Australia have to wait for a long time before they hear about their application. "I know some who've been waiting for three years and during that time they have no rights, except to work. They cannot get welfare, so they have to take any work available."
Others are in the detention centres because they applied for asylum from "outside" Australia — at the airport or port when they arrived here. "All of the 30 or so Sudanese who've been put in a detention centre in Australia were held for more than seven months. One Sudanese man has been in Villawood for almost four years. The government says that these refugees are 'illegal' and 'criminals'. But refugees have rights in international law. People are not illegal just because they are refugees or asylum seekers.
"The government's policy is racist. The refugees are from many different backgrounds but none of them are white. The government does nothing about the British people overstaying here.
"That's why I got involved in the Free the Refugees Campaign, for anti-racist reasons, and to free all the refugees who are in detention centres."
Commenting on the myth that there are "worthy" and "unworthy" refugees, Yousif says: "The people in Sudan who escape the war just want to get away, to become secure. They may not be persecuted political activists, but they are human and they have a right to live a good life, to be able to think, breathe, to live freely.
"I am an activist, but there is no difference between me and other refugees in Australia. All of us here are oppressed by dictatorial governments.
"It is a bad feeling being a refugee, there's a lot of pain. We didn't dream about being far away from our countries. We like our countries, our culture, our language, our people, our families, our friends. Our dream was just to be able to live as human beings."