Police raid Umma Party office in Dongola, northern Sudan

A number of people were injured, and two were detained in Dongola on Saturday, in a police raid on the office of the National Umma Party (NUP) in the Northern State town.

“The Dongola branch of the party was hosting a public forum, to inaugurate the Leave! campaign, organised by the National Consensus Forces (NCF, a coalition of opposition parties) on Saturday evening,” NUP chairman of the Northern State, Mohamed Suleiman Abu Ali, told Dabanga.

“Police and security forces surrounded the office before the start of the event, preventing visitors and NUP members from entering the premises. Not much later, the forces stormed the building. They used batons, electric sticks, and tear gas to disperse the people already present.”

Bakri Yousef, the spokesman for the NCF, reported that the attack resulted in the injury of a number of people. “Several others fainted.”

He added that two people were detained for a short period, and that the sound system was confiscated.

Leave!

The NCF launched their anti-elections campaign, called “Leave!” officially on 4 February. “The campaign aims at collecting signatures from citizens all over the country, on the ground and through the internet, to support the call for the departure of the regime that has brought us 25 years of corruption and misery,” a NUP official told Dabanga.

“We have a clear programme, calling upon the Sudanese to boycott the fake polls organised by the ruling National Congress Party to re-establish President Al Bashir, that will cost the country about $800 million,” she explained.

She added that public fora would be organised in more than 20 places in the country to inform the Sudanese about the contents of the Sudan Appeal, signed by a number of opposition forces in Addis Ababa on 3 December last year.

On 5 February, four organisers of a “Leave!” forum were detained in El Gezira state. A week later, security forces held seven activists preparing a similar forum in Sennar, eastern Sudan.

Sudan Appeal

The Sudan Appeal, a political communiqué , signed in Addis Ababa on 3 December by the NUP, the NCF, the allied revel movements, and the Civil Society Initiative, calls for the ending of the civil wars in the country, the dismantling of the one-party system, and the rebuilding of Sudan based on democratic principles and equal citizenship. The signatories agree that if a peaceful regime change cannot be achieved by a broad national dialogue, it should be enforced by a popular uprising. A Joint Action Charter was added not much later.

Last week, the signatories met in Berlin, where they discussed and unified their positions concerning a broad national dialogue, in line with the Sudan Appeal.