Mass detention campaign in Sudan prior to civil strike

Many Sudanese are reportedly planning to respond to activists’ calls to join a civil strike tomorrow in protest against unprecedented increases in the prices of basic consumer goods, medicines, electricity, and fuel. The authorities pre-empted the announced disobedience campaign on Monday with mass arrests of activists in the country.

Multiple sources informed Radio Dabanga on Sunday that agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) detained Dr Yahya Hassan Yahya, head of the National Umma Party (NUP) in White Nile state, El Ebeid Shatir, member of the Socialist Arab Baath Party, Ahmed Hassan Ahmed, member of the Sudanese Baath Party, lawyer Hashim Beloul, and Nemat Adam, member of the Sudan People’s Liberation movement-North (SPLM-N), in various parts of White Nile state on Saturday.

“Lawyer Zaki Munsir was detained from his office in Kosti,” one of the sources reported. He said that they were all detained because they called on the people to participate in the civil disobedience action on Monday and stay at home.

NUP member Ayman Hamad Bakr was detained in North Kordofan’s Sheikan today when he distributed leaflets calling for civil disobedience in the locality.

NISS officers detained Dr El Zubeir Mohamed, Secretary of States of the El Ansar Affairs Association, when he presented a sermon to a number of Ansar [followers of Imam El Sadig El Mahdi] in a mosque in the El Kalakla district in Khartoum on Friday evening. Mohamed urged his audience to join the civil strike on Monday in protest in revolt against “the unjust regime”.

Dentist Hatem was also detained in the Sudanese capital on Saturday. as well as political activist, Saeed Abbas from the Nuba Mountains in South Kordofan.

“The Sudanese people are dying a slow death, from hunger, diseases, and the lack of medicines.”

In El Gezira state in central Sudan, security officers detained Mohamed El Tayeb Dafallah, a leading member of the Communist Party, from his home in El Hoda.

Zeinab Ahmed El Bagi, Kamal Mohamed El Nima, and Hamad Kashar, and El Amin El Marouf were summoned to report at the NISS office of El Managil.

In eastern Sudan, security agents detained a number of activists as well. In Sinkat, Taha Abu Taher and Ali Abu Mohamed were detained over the weekend. The security apparatus of Kassala summoned the secretary of NUP Kassala, Mohamed Abdelrahman, to their office on Saturday morning.

Abbas Imam, Secretary of the NUP Students Secretariat, was summoned to report at the NISS office in Sinja, the capital of Sennar.

‘A slow death’

In the Red Sea state capital Port Sudan, Jaafar Abdelgader, head of the Popular Committee for the Defence of Schools, Majdi Abdelgeyoum, leading member of the Hag Movement, journalist Amin Senada, and Mutaz El Amin were detained on Sunday.

 “The Beja Congress is betting on all the Sudanese people to represent an alternative to this regime.”

Students of the Beja Conference held a public meeting in Port Sudan on Saturday in which they urged the people to join the nationwide civil disobedience action on 19 December “to oust the Khartoum regime and realise a real change in Sudan”.

The spokesman for the students said that “The Sudanese people are dying a slow death, from hunger, diseases, and the lack of medicines.”

He told Radio Dabanga that “when he went to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at the end of November, President Al Bashir did not go to request economic aid for the benefit of the Sudanese people, but he just went to in order to supplement the arsenal of weapons to continue the war against innocent civilians in Sudan”.

He added that “The Beja Congress is betting on all the Sudanese people to represent an alternative to this regime”, and warned the people to stay at home “so that no one gets hurt”.

‘Big zero’

Presidential Aide Ibrahim Mahmoud Hamid told parliamentarians in Omdurman this morning that the civil disobedience actions represent “a big zero”. He likened the civil strikes with “empty words in the air”.

Hamid further denied the NISS detention campaign in the country. Not much later he came back on his words and said that “detentions do not fall under my competence”.

Concerning the repeated confiscations of newspapers, he commented that “If there is a security threat to the country, the authorities will take all possible actions to preserve the state’s security and stability”.