Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what assessment the Government has made of human rights in Sudan in the period from 2011 to 2016 in preparation for the Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council on 4 May 2016.

Sudan remains a priority country for UK engagement and we have made regular assessments of the human rights situation during this period, as set out in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s annual Human Rights and Democracy reports, available here:

https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/human-rights-and-democracy-reports.

During the Universal Periodic Review process at the UN Human Rights Council we raised a number of areas of concern including the impact of the ongoing conflicts in Darfur and the Two Areas, the immunity from prosecution provided to the Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Service and restrictions on freedom of religion or belief.