Sakharov Network

Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman is a prominent human rights actvist who for 20 years has defended victims of the ongoing civil war in his native country of Sudan.

"In a country governed by the rule of the gun, Salih believes in the rule of law” according to human Rights watch”. “He is a thorn in the side of those who use violence to cling to power. And for so many of his fellow Darfurians ,Salih is a lifeline, in a society that in recent years has had little cause to hope “

Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman, born 1957 in Tibbon Gabel Marra in Darfur graduated from the faculty of law in Khartoum in 1980.
He is lawyer working with the Sudan Organisation against Torture (“SOAT”) to provide free legal representation to people who have been arbitrarily detained and tortured by the Sudanese government and whose only crime is that the oppose government and whose only crime is that they oppose government policies or share the same ethnicity as the rebel movements in Darfur.

“Despite the difficulties we are giving support to the victims, assuring them that they are not forgotten” says Mr Osman. Over two decades during Sudan’s various civil wars Mr Osman has risked his own life to provide legal and medical aid to the victims of the conflict.

Mr Osman fights court cases on behalf of those charged by the Sudanese government, and, and has been successful with SOAT in overturning or reducing sentences to death or amputation.

Mr Osman and SOAT have also been active in cataloguing crimes that have taken place – particularly in the Darfur region - and they are engaged in a campaign to have rape prosecuted as a war crime.

As violence in the Darfur region has worsened over the past few years, Mr Osman has worked to provide a record of the alleged war crimes in that region.
He visits those who are detained and initiates legal action against Human Rights violators. His interviews with witnesses and records of crimes have been turned over to the international Criminal Court (ICC) to assist the Court’s prosecutions. As a matter of fact, the ICC prosecuted crimes in Darfur in 2005 and issued and arrest warrant against alleged Sudanese perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr Osman’s fight against injustice in Sudan has come at a personal cost. Members of his own family have suffered as a result of action by the militias. Mr Osman himself was persecuted for his actions; detained several times, held incommunicado and tortured. In 2004 he was imprisoned by the Sudanese security forces for over seven months without any charge or trial. He was released only after the intervention of the international community and his own hunger strike.

Despite the greatest risk for him and his family, Mr Osman has continued after his release, his brave defence of basic civil, political, and human rights. Concerned by the possible widening of the Darfur conflict which seriously threatens stability and security in central Africa, he also travelled across Europe to call for international intervention in Darfur.
On 8 November 2005, he was awarded Human Rights Watch’s highest honour for his work in Sudan.

Mr Salih Osman is currently actively involved in the protection of over 2 million Sudanese who have been forced to abandon their homes.
In addition to achieving the return of these displaced people to their homes and their rehabilitation, Mr Osman works to secure the accountability of those responsible.

Since 2006, Mr Osman has served as an opposition member of the Sudanese Parliament.
His new role allows him to voice his convictions, and avoid the harassment by national security forces faced by the other human rights defenders in Sudan. In his role as member of the National assembly for the National Democratic Alliance, he works on legal reform and focuses on promoting the rule of law through the implementation of the provisions of the interim constitution. At the same time he continues to provide legal aid in Nyala and in Khartoum.

By awarding the prize Sakharov to Mr Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman, the European Parliament pays tribute to his efforts and his courage in coming to the aid of the people of Darfur who face such terrible violation of their most basic human rights.