Al Bashir supporters arrested in Khartoum

Police arrested 30 supporters of deposed president Al Bashir yesterday for violating Sudan government measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19), after they staged a demonstration in Khartoum.

Dozens of women supporters of the ousted Al Bashir regime gathered in downtown Khartoum on Sunday, denouncing the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), calling for the resignation of the transitional government, and demanding improvement of living conditions in Sudan.

Among the 30 demonstrators arrested was Muamar Mousa, head of the newly formed Unified Popular Movement.

Hundreds of supporters of former president Omar Al Bashir staged a demonstration in Khartoum last week. The protest was reportedly organised by a group called Hashed, known for its loyalty to the regime of the deposed dictator. The protestors demanded that the government be replaced. They also called for the continuation of  subsidies on basic consumer goods, and better living conditions.

The political forces and civil society organisations that signed the Declaration of Freedom and Change in January 2019 called on all resistance committees in the neighbourhoods and villages to be cautious and vigilant, and “to confront the remaining supporters of Al Bashir’s National Congress Party and the remnants of the ousted regime”.

The Communist Party on Sudan said in a statement on Sunday that the response to the protests by supporters of the ousted regime is “to fully implement the demands of the revolutionaries by continuing to dismantle the Al Bashir regime, bring all those who committed crimes against our people to court, and to build a just and comprehensive peace”.

The party demanded the appointment of civilian governors and the formation of a transitional Legislative Council, as “important steps towards the establishment of a full civilian authority”.

Anti-Corruption Committee

Lawyer Wajdi Saleh, member of the Empowerment* Elimination, Anti-Corruption, and Funds Recovery Committee, announced on Sunday that he received anonymous death threats on his personal telephone, hours after retrieving 157 plots of land from three prominent leaders of the ousted regime. “This will not discourage us from continuing to dismantle the former regime.”

He pointed to the assassination attempt on two members of the committee in West Kordofan last week, when gunmen fired at their vehicle when it entered the town of Muglad. 

The Anti-Corruption Committee was established by the new government in the end of last year, with the aim to purge Sudan from the remnants of the Al Bashir regime.

In January, Ashorooq and Teiba satellite channels and El Ray El Aam and El Sudani newspapers were suspended. This was to last until their accounts are reviewed and the owners identified. The accounts of the International University of Africa were being audited, and the Holy Koran Association was dissolved.

A month later, the committee dissolved the administrative boards of the Central Bank on Sudan and 11 other banks and dismissed nine bank managers with links to the deposed Al Bashir regime. Another nine boards of directors of corporations and a number of directors of other institutions were removed as well.

In early April, the committee announced the dismissal of more than a hundred government employees affiliated with the deposed Al Bashir regime. Directors of ministerial departments were to be removed as well. Private hospitals set up by members of the former regime were to be confiscated.

* Empowerment (tamkin) is the term with which the government of President Omar Al Bashir, ousted in April last year, supported its affiliates in state affairs by granting them far-going privileges, including government functions and the setting-up of companies.

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