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Dear Reader,
Imagine an election where the government sends in troops to break up a political rally, arrest and jail the candidate and supporters who attend, and then arrest and beat the journalists who try to tell the story of what happened.
That’s the reality of election season in Omar al-Bashir’s Sudan.
Sudan’s first multi-party elections in 24 years are this week, and most major opposition parties have withdrawn their candidates for president – reportedly because they were convinced the elections were too flawed to proceed.
Send a letter to President Obama today and demand that without basic freedoms, the United States must not recognize the results of an illegitimate electoral process.
Bashir’s regime refuses to guarantee basic political freedoms for self-determination: the freedoms of association, movement, assembly and speech; freedom of the press; equal access to the media; protection from violence when voting; and allowing independent monitoring of the election for fraud and intimidation.
Secretary of State Clinton called on Sudan “to suspend elements of the national security and public order laws that are incompatible with free and fair elections. There must be no efforts to restrict freedom of speech and assembly. And there must be no prohibitions on peaceful protests.”
But in Sudan, the conditions for truly free and fair elections are simply not in place. We can’t allow a fraudulent election process to give legitimacy to a genocidal regime.
And without scrutiny by the Obama administration and the international community, the elections will deliver the sort of legitimization that Bashir desires.
Tell President Obama not to recognize the results of an illegitimate election. Tell him not to allow a fugitive of justice from the International Criminal Court to legitimize his brutal dictatorship.
April is Genocide Prevention month, and this year it couldn’t be at a more critical time for Darfur and all of Sudan. Hundreds of thousands of Darfuris are still living in camps, unable to return home because they fear being attacked on the way.
The people of Sudan need our support. Send a letter to President Obama now urging him not to recognize an illegitimate election.
We will be in touch with you in the weeks to come with more ways you can get involved.
Sincerely,
Mark Lotwis
Save Darfur Coalition
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