Sudan’s NISS refuses to accept memo for release opposition leader

On Sunday, the security authorities of Wad Madani, capital of El Gezira, refused to accept a memorandum demanding the release of Omar Abdelmunim Ibrahim, the head of the Sudanese Congress Party offices abroad.

Ibrahim, who acted as head of the Sudanese Congress Party during the detention of the party’s head and deputy head in November and December last year, is living and working in Saudi Arabia.

He returned to Sudan in late December last year to attend the funeral of his mother in El Sunout in El Gezira. He planned to fly back to Saudi Arabia on 8 January but was held by security agents at Khartoum International Airport, and taken to an unknown destination.

His sister Rugeya told Radio Dabanga that the people of El Sunout went to the office of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in the El Gezira capital of Wad Madani, to submit a memorandum demanding the release of Ibrahim.

“The security officers however refused to accept the memo,” she said.

The people of El Sunout also staged a demonstration on the Wad Madani-Sennar road on Sunday, calling for the release of Ibrahim and all other political detainees.

Approximately 40 opposition politicians and activists were detained by the NISS since activists began calling for a civil disobedience campaign in November. That month the Sudanese government liberalised the fuel and medicine markets, and implemented other austerity measures, which hiked prices and had a substantial knock-on economic effect.

They detainees were released in late December. During their incarceration, the opposition politicians and activists were held incommunicado; many of them in Khartoum North’s Kober Prison.