Good afternoon, everyone.
Welcome to the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Today is the last day of March. This our 63rd meeting and it is being televised.
We have as a witness here today Justin Laku, who is a lecturer at the centre for peace and development studies at the University of Juba in South Sudan.
Today we are talking about the human rights situation in Sudan, although if that extends into a discussion of South Sudan, that is of course completely okay.
Mr. Laku, we invite you to begin your comments. I'll just inform you of how this works. We have a tiny bit less than an hour. We usually encourage people to make their comments for about 10 minutes, which allows for the rest of the time to be used by the various questioners. They then ask questions and you respond to them. I've found in the past that the back and forth that comes from those questions and answers is often the most productive part of the meeting. The questions will be divided up among six members of Parliament. How long each of those question-and-answer rounds is depends on how long your initial presentation is.
With that said, I invite you to begin your testimony. Thank you very much.