Opposition leaders barred from leaving Sudan

Agents of the National intelligence and Security Service (NISS) prevented three opposition leaders from travelling to France today.

Mohamed Mukhtar El Khateeb, secretary-general of the Communist Party of Sudan (CPoS), told Radio Dabanga that security officers stopped him, senior CPoS member Tarig Abdelmajeed, and the head of the Unified Federal Party, Jalaa El Azhari, from travelling to Paris this (Sunday) morning.

The three members of the National Consensus Forces (NCF, a coalition of opposition parties) intended to participate in a meeting of the Sudan Appeal forces, scheduled to take place in the French capital from 9 to 11 November.

As happened before with other opposition leaders, security officers confiscated the passports of the three before they would board the aircraft at Khartoum International Airport. El Khateeb said that they did not inform them about the reasons for barring them from travelling.

He condemned the incident, and said that it “sharply contradicts what the leaders of the ruling party announced about the restoration of political freedoms”.

Sudan Appeal

On 3 December last year, the Sudan Revolutionary Front rebel alliance, the National Umma Party, the NCF, and the Civil Society Initiative (CSI) signed a two-page political communiqué, entitled the Sudan Appeal in Addis Ababa.

In the communiqué, the joint opposition forces refer to the armed conflicts and humanitarian suffering in the country and the economic and political bankruptcy. As Sudan is slipping into an abyss, the allied opposition stated that a comprehensive solution could not be adjourned much longer. The Sudan Appeal signatories agreed to cooperate in order to dismantle the one-party system, for the sake of a rebuilding Sudan based on democratic values and equal citizenship.

The leaders of the NCF and the CSI were detained by NISS officers on 6 December, a day after they returned to Khartoum. They were tried for charges of instigating violence against the state and violating the Constitution, until they were suddenly released on 9 April, four days before the start of the general election.