Sudanese civil society calls for nationwide intifada

The release of Faroug Abu Eisa, Amin Mekki Madani, and Farah El Agar last week is “only a trick to mislead the international community”, according to the Civil Society Initiative (CSI).

The CSI warned in a statement on Friday that the sudden release of the senior opposition leaders may be a cover-up for a violent security crackdown on protesters during the election on 13-15 April, and called for a nation-wide uprising.

The Sudanese civil society organisations, united in the CSI, pointed to the regime’s failure to attend the preparatory meeting for the National Dialogue with the opposition forces in Addis Ababa in March, and described the election as an “absurd tragedy that clearly shows the lack of political will to engage in negotiations to solve the many country’s crises peacefully”.

Abu Eisa, head of the opposition parties’ National Consensus Forces (NCF), Madani, chairman of the Civil Society Initiative (CSI), and El Agar, legal consultant of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North, were released from Kober Prison in Khartoum-North on Thursday morning.

They were detained in Khartoum on 6 December last year, after their return from Addis Ababa, where Abu Eisa and Madani had signed the Sudan Appeal, a political communiqué calling for regime-change, together with the Sudan Revolutionary Front rebel alliance and the National Umma Party. Their trial, on charges by the Sudanese security apparatus of violating the constitution and fomenting war against the state, started on 23 February.

“Only a nation-wide intifada can release Sudan from the grip of the corrupt ruling National Congress Party, restore peace, rights and freedoms, and rebuild the country based on democracy and equal citizenship.”

The CSI stressed that the road chosen by the Sudan Appeal signatories, after the Sudanese government declined to accept the AU invitation to discuss the process of a broad national dialogue in the Ethiopian capital on 29 March, is a mass intifada.

It called “on all sectors in the rural and urban areas” to support the Sudan Appeal and the uprising.

“Only a nation-wide uprising can release Sudan from the grip of the corrupt ruling National Congress Party, restore peace, rights and freedoms, and rebuild the country based on democracy and equal citizenship,” the statement reads.

‘Immediate release’

CSI chairman Dr Madani told reporters in Khartoum on Thursday that he and Abu Eisa are still convinced about the rightness of their actions. He noted that they preferred to be released after being acquitted, instead of by a political decision.

The prominent human rights lawyer said that their detention was “the least possible sacrifice we could offer to the Sudanese people and their struggle for freedom”.

Regarding the circumstances of their release, Madani said that they were summoned to the office of the director of Kober Prison early on Thursday morning, where they were informed that the government had decided to drop the charges against them.

“They told us to leave the prison immediately. We were not even allowed to return to our cells to retrieve our belongings.”