Memo torn to pieces in front of Sudan’s Justice Ministry

On Monday, security officers prevented leaders of the National Consensus Forces (NCF, a coalition of Sudanese opposition parties) from submitting a memorandum to the Minister of Justice.

Bakri Yousef, the spokesman for the coalition, told Radio Dabanga from Khartoum that when the NCF delegation reached the Justice Ministry, they were not allowed to enter. “When Mohamed Mukhtar El Khateeb, the secretary-general of the Communist Party started to read aloud the memo, a member of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) tore the memo into pieces, and threw them at the opposition leaders.”

In the memo, the allied opposition denounced the “systematic violence” by the security forces against Darfuri students at Sudanese universities and other higher educational institutes. The NCF leaders pointed to the rights of the Darfur students to demand the exemption from paying university fees, as it was stipulated in the 2006 Abuja and 2011 Doha peace accords.

Yousef said that the Darfuri students should be considered co-stakeholders in the peace agreements, not combatants. “The memo demands the release of all detained Darfuri students, the immediate formation of a committee that will investigate the clashes at the Sudanese universities and colleges this and last year, and bringing the perpetrators to trial.”

The opposition further demand the return of all Darfuri students who have been expelled from universities or not accepted because they could or would not pay the fees.

Warning

The spokesman added that the “memorandum sent a clear warning to the Khartoum regime, represented in this case by the Minister of Justice, not to allow the NISS to continue violating the rights of the Sudanese, gagging the press, abusing Christians and demolishing their churches, and arbitrarily detaining opposition members and barring them from travelling abroad”.

Dr Jalaa El Azhari, the head of the Unified National Unionist Party, added that the NCF is now waiting for a response from the Minister of Justice, Awad El Hassan El Nur.