Merchants sentenced to pay 2000 SDP fine in Garsela

Last week the Garsela Court in Central Darfur sentenced 20 merchants accused of selling expired goods in their shops. Each of them must pay a fine of 2.000 Sudanese pounds (SDP) and they had their goods confiscated by security forces. A trader told Radio Dabanga that the sentence is unfair. He accused the government and security services of unjustly confiscating people’s money and fighting against small trader’s livelihoods. He calls for security authorities to control and arrest the corrupt ones -who sell these expired goods- instead of raiding shops of small traders, in addition to arresting and prosecuting them and confiscating their goods. Also in Garsela, pharmacies’ owners resumed work two weeks after the security service forced them to shut down their businesses. A pharmacy owner told Radio Dabanga that security services said the pharmacies’ owners must get new permits for their businesses. He says they have permits and describes the current campaign carried out by the security service an attack against citizens. The businessman compares these abuses to the Bashbuzuk campaigns, carried out during the Ottoman era in Sudan in 1921.