Mon Nov 1, 2010, Mokhtar said the arrests began on Saturday but continued until last night.
President Omar Hassan al-Bashir’s government forced many prominent human rights activists to flee Sudan in 2009 after the International Criminal Court indicted him for war crimes in Darfur. The court added genocide to the charges this year.
But Khartoum had somewhat eased its harsh policies ahead of the emotional southern referendum.
Mokhtar said the arrests cast doubt on whether Khartoum would allow civil society to work freely ahead of the referendum. “It’s now really raised alarm bells that probably what is coming is going to be worse”.
Many northern Sudanese worry that if the south separates, which most predict is likely, Khartoum will become more hard line in its crackdown on dissenters.
Darfur’s joint U.N.-African Union peacekeeping mission also said on Monday that armed men had attacked Tina village in North Darfur killing four people and injuring several others.
It said in a statement it had evacuated injured from Tina in after an attack by unknown armed men on civilians there. It gave no further details.
(Reporting by Opheera McDoom)
