Sudan releases 20 detainees: SCP leaders still held

The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) have released 16 leaders of the opposition Sudanese Congress Party (SCP), and four members of the Reform Now Movement. SCP President, Omar El Digeir, and his deputy and foreign affairs assistant, Khaled Omar Yousef, remain in custody.

Approximately 40 opposition politicians and activists have been detained since the start of the civil disobedience campaign following the Sudanese government’s announcement in early November of liberalisation of the fuel and medicine markets and other austerity measures, which hiked prices and had a substantial knock-on economic effect.

In a statement yesterday, SCP spokesman Mohamed Hassan Arabi confirmed that 16 of the Party’s leaders have been released. They include its former leader Ibrahim El Sheikh, secretary general Mastour Ahmed, political secretary Abubaker Yousef, chairman of the Central Council Abdelgeyoum Awadelsid, and deputy Information Secretary Abdallah Shamselkon.

Many of those released have been in detention since the beginning of November.

Arabi’s statement highlights that Omar El Digeir, and his deputy and foreign affairs assistant, Khaled Omar Yousef are not among those released.

Four members of the Reform Now Movement have also been released, according to a separate statement from the Movement’s headquarters.

During their incarceration, the detainees were held incommunicado; many of them in Khartoum North’s Kober prison.