Minister of Justice: Human rights are top priority in national policy

Justice Minister Mohamed Saeed Al-Hilu, met today in his office visiting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mr. Volker Türk  and his accompanying delegation.

The Minister welcomed the visit of the High Commissioner to the country, which is his first as a High Commissioner. He thanked the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights for the effort exerted to promote and protect human rights and achieve the principles for which it was established, noting that Sudan is a party to most international and regional human rights conventions.

He also affirmed Sudan’s commitment to fulfilling its commitments in accordance with its ratification of regional and international conventions, and its quest to join the conventions that it has not ratified, emphasizing the highest priority of the human rights issue in its national policy.

He referred to Sudan’s election to membership of the Human Rights Council for the period 2023-2025 and that Sudan looks forward to a greater role in supporting all relevant resolutions that would promote and protect human rights, stressing Sudan’s full cooperation with various international and regional human rights mechanisms and support for the work of the universal periodic review mechanism as one of the most important mechanisms of the Human Rights Council.

He explained that Sudan, in its quest to promote human rights, signed the Juba Peace Agreement with the armed struggle movements and made great efforts to encourage reconciliations and peaceful coexistence and to combat hate speech. It also signed a memorandum of understanding with the International Criminal Court within the framework of the rule of law and commitment to prevent impunity.

The minister affirmed that the government will continue its efforts to support dialogue to reach consensus on managing the remainder of the transitional period in cooperation with the tripartite mechanism and partners.

For his part, the High Commissioner for Human Rights praised the steps taken by the Sudanese government in the field of human rights, noting that his visit to Sudan comes with the purpose of solidarity with the Sudanese people, especially as the country is going through a transitional phase.

He thanked the Government of Sudan on behalf of the United Nations for hosting large numbers of displaced people and refugees.