More opposition leaders detained, sentenced in North Kordofan, South Darfur

On Friday, El Obeid Criminal Court sentenced the head of the opposition Sudanese Congress Party in North Kordofan, Hatim Mirghani, together with eight others to six months imprisonment under the State of Emergency.

Agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) detained Mirghani on Sunday from Um Rawaba and moved him to the detention of the security apparatus in El Obeid with a number of detainees, on the same day Husseini Ahmed was arrested after addressing demonstrators in El Nahud in West Kordofan on Friday.

On Monday, NISS officers arrested Jamal Abakar, head of the State Council of the Sudanese Congress Party in in Babanusa, West Kordofan, after the protests against hunger, rise of prices, and demanding the departure of the regime.

On Monday evening, the security authorities in El Obeid arrested Osman Saleh, secretary of the Communist Party of North Kordofan as part of a large-scale arrest campaign in El Obeid involving 17 people, including 12 students from Kordofan University, two  from the Communist Party and one from the Unionist Party.

Farmers, teachers

Yesterday, Yousef El Hassani, president of the Farmers Union, and Adil Amin of the leadership of the National Umma Party were detained in El Gezira Aba, Mansour Obeid member of Rabak locality union and the headmaster of El Mustagabal schools were held in Rabak.

Yesterday, the security in Ed Daein in East Darfur arrested lawyers Mohamed Abdallah and Abubakar Jabreldar.

The Communist Party also condemned the security forces storming its headquarters in Khartoum and the arrest of Mohamed El Hassan, the political secretary of the party, as a clear violation of his right to practice his political work.

The political secretary of the party, Mohamed El Khateeb, told a press conference yesterday noon: “We reject the arrest of colleagues who are party members, asserting that they are acting as a peaceful act guaranteed by the Constitution”.

He said the Communist Party would take all legal measures against the security apparatus.

South Darfur

The security services arrested seven people in Buram in South Darfur after demonstrations against the hunger and soaring prices on Sunday.

A group of 10 civil and political forces in South Darfur said in a statement that “there is no escape from this tunnel only through the mobilisation, unification and the creation of a broad national front and the popular uprising”.

Peaceful protest

The statement appealed to the public “to sense the spirit of national responsibility to go out to the streets and demand the overthrow of the regime of poverty, hunger and disease, and to express our demands by peaceful means without resorting to the destruction of public and private property”.

The statement was signed by members of the Communist Party, the Baath parties, the Association of Displaced People and Refugees, Democratic Lawyers’ Union, Democratic Women’s Union, Artisans Association and the Democratic Students Front.

Campaign

Similar arrests have been reported from across the country. On Saturday, security agents arrested 14 leaders of the National Consensus Forces (NCF, a coalition of Sudanese opposition parties) during a meeting of the coalition in Omdurman and transferred them to an unknown destination without releasing them so far.