As the pro-democracy protest movement begins to re-galvanize, and the military unleashes coercion and violence, a specter of uncertainty looms over Sudan. Positioned in this moment of flux, this webinar explored the different possible outcomes that Sudan may face from the diverse vantage points of the panelists.
Event Overview
In April 2019, a youthful pro-democracy movement succeeded in bringing down President Omar al-Bashir, a military officer who ruled the country for three decades and was accused of committing war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide by the International Criminal Court. While Sudan’s democratic transition was seen as a beacon of hope in an increasingly troubled region, that hope may soon be dashed. On the 25th of October, just two years after the protest movement forced the establishment of a transitional government, the military has once again taken power by force.
As the pro-democracy protest movement begins to re-galvanize, and the military unleashes coercion and violence, a specter of uncertainty looms over Sudan. Positioned in this moment of flux, this webinar will explore the different possible outcomes that Sudan may face from the diverse vantage points of the panelists.
Watch a Zoom recording of this webinar.
Sponsored by Harvard Law’s Human Rights Program and the Program on Law and Society in the Muslim World. Co-Sponsored by Harvard University’s Center for African Studies and Harvard Law School’s Advocates for Human Rights, African Law Association, and Middle Eastern Law Students Association.
Panel
Hala Al Karib
Panelist
Hala Al Karib is a Sudanese activist who specializes and works on the Sudans and the Horn of Africa. She is the regional director of the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA). She has broad knowledge and expertise on the Horn and Eastern Africa regions, as a civil society worker, an activist, and a social and gender research practitioner. She is editor in chief of Women in Islam, an annual Arabic and English Journal published by SIHA Network.
Alex de Waal
Panelist
Alex de Waal is executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at The Fletcher School at Tufts University. Considered one of the foremost experts on Sudan and the Horn of Africa, his scholarship and practice has also probed humanitarian crisis and response, human rights, HIV/AIDS and governance in Africa, and conflict and peacebuilding. Alex de Waal received a D.Phil. from Oxford for his thesis on the 1984-1985 Darfur famine in Sudan.
Abdelkhalig Shaib
Panelist
Abdelkhalig Shaib is currently an FVP, Legal Counsel & Corporate Secretary at Bank ABC and is admitted to practice law in both New York and Sudan. In addition to providing drafting and analytic support in the process of adopting Sudan’s 2019 Constitutional Charter, Abdelkhalig has provided legal advice to a number of international organizations on Sudan’s constitution-making, elections, and political accommodation. He is one of the founders of the Arab Association of Constitutional Law and holds an LL.M. from the Harvard Law School, in addition to an LL.B. and an LL.M. from the University of Khartoum, Faculty of Law.
Mohamed Osman
Panelist
Mohamed Osman is a Researcher in Human Rights Watch’s Africa Division. After receiving a legal education in the University of Khartoum, Mohamed practiced law in Sudan and worked as a legal adviser to international organizations including Redress, Sudan Human Rights Monitor and the ICRC. He has a master’s degree from the University of Essex on International Human Rights and Humanitarian Law.
Abadir M. Ibrahim
Moderator
Abadir M. Ibrahim is the Associate Director of the Human Rights Program. Before joining the HRP he was the Head of the Secretariat for the Legal and Justice Affairs Advisory Council of Ethiopia, an institution established as an independent body to advise the government on conducting pro-democracy and pro-rights justice sector reforms. As a lawyer, activist, scholar, and educator in African human rights law, he both practices and studies human rights at a global, African and domestic levels.