A/HRC/7/22 page 7 III. NORTHERN SUDAN 19. In northern Sudan, despite the potential for democratic transition and the optimism created by the Interim National Constitution and the Bill of Rights, violations of civil and political rights remain widespread. 20. The National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) continue to arrest and detain people for prolonged periods of time without charges and legal representation, and frequently without the possibility to receive family visits. Detainees are reported to be held incommunicado for weeks or months, and in some cases longer, without being brought before a judge. Reports of torture and ill-treatment are frequent. In some cases, torture is practised to force confessions that are later used to implicate those detained in criminal cases in court. These violations of the right to liberty and security and to a fair trial are directly related to the fact that the 2001 National Security Forces Act, under which individuals are arrested and detained, contravenes human rights guarantees contained in the Interim National Constitution and international human rights law and standards. 21. Since September 2006, over 70 people of Darfurian origin have been arrested in Khartoum in the context of an investigation into the murder of Mohamed Taha, editor of the newspaper Al Wifaq. In February 2007, 19 people were charged with the murder and taken to court. At the end of August 2007, nine defendants, including two women, one of whom was a minor, were acquitted and released after nearly a year of detention. The court found that, in the absence of confessions by these defendants, the material evidence presented by the investigators was insufficient to obtain convictions. On 10 November 2007, the 10 remaining defendants, including a 71-year-old and a minor aged 17, who was 16 years old at the time of the crime, were found guilty and sentenced to death by a court in Khartoum North. Defence lawyers are appealing the judgement. 22. The convictions were almost exclusively based on confessions which the defendants made after being detained incommunicado for up to four months. This raises serious concerns on the lack of respect of basic human rights guarantees in pretrial detention. There have been reports by defendants, their families, defence lawyers and former detainees that many of the detainees were subjected to torture or ill-treatment to force confessions implicating them or other detainees in the murder. The defendants did not have access to legal counsel when their confessions were taken by the judge, and some of them were not informed that they were being taken before a judge and that their statements were being registered as confessions. The court failed to investigate claims that defendants gave confessions extracted under torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. The court also failed to grant medical examinations to the defendants, as requested by their lawyers at the beginning of the court case, that could have been used to support claims of ill-treatment in detention. 23. On 31 December 2007, 31 individuals accused of planning a coup against the State in July were set free following a public pardon by the President. The accused, who had been held in detention for over five months, included prominent political figures such as Mubarak Al Fadil, leader of the Umma Reform and Renewal Party, and Ali Mahmoud Hassanein, deputy chairman of the Democratic Unionist Party. Mubarak Al Fadil had been released ahead of the pardon,