Sudan bars Communist Party leader from travelling abroad

Siddig Yousef, member of the Central Bureau of the Communist Party of Sudan, was barred from travelling abroad last week.

Yousef told Radio Dabanga on Sunday that after he had obtained his ticket and exit visa, he arrived at Khartoum International Airport to travel abroad “for a partisan activity’.

He was surprised when a security official told him that his name is on the list of people who are banned from travelling. “The officer could not or did not want to tell me the reasons for putting me on this blacklist.

“I told him that only a competent court can decide on a travel ban, in case of people legally charged with a violation against the law. And a partisan activity definitely does not fall within this category.

“They did not confiscate my passport this time,” he added.

The Communist Party has submitted a protest memorandum to the Registrar of Political Parties in which it called the travel ban of politicians a violation of the Sudanese law. “The decision to bar a politician from travelling abroad for a partisan event is contrary to the law and the constitutional right of political parties’ members to engage in political activities.”

Last year, Yousef was banned from travelling abroad twice. In June, he was barred, together with other opposition leaders, from boarding a flight to Strasbourg for a European Parliament hearing on Sudan. Four months later, security officers stopped him and Ibrahim El Sheikh, head of the Sudanese Congress Party, from leaving Khartoum for the Egyptian capital where they would meet with other Sudanese opposition leaders.