Travel ban for Sudanese opposition leaders

Agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) banned Ibrahim El Sheikh, head of the Sudanese Congress Party (SCP), and Siddig Yousef, a prominent member of the Communist Party of Sudan (CPoS), from travelling abroad over the weekend.

El Sheikh told Radio Dabanga he completed all exit procedures without any problem, but when he was about to board the aircraft to Cairo early on Sunday morning, a security guard told him that his name was on the “travel ban list”.

His passport was taken from him, and he was told that he would get it back at the NISS Information Office in Khartoum. El Sheikh added that he does not expect to receive his passport before the expiry of his visas.

He explained that the purpose of his travel to Cairo was to meet with some Sudanese opposition leaders there, including Faroug Abu Eisa, the head of the National Consensus Forces (NCF, a coalition of the main opposition parties).

From Cairo, El Sheikh would travel to Paris to meet with the leaders of the Sudan Revolutionary Front rebel alliance to discuss the unification of the opposition factions, and holding an expanded meeting of the Sudan Appeal forces, in order to formulate a unified standpoint on the National Dialogue and a popular uprising.

National Dialogue

Siddig Yousef, member of the CpoS Central Committee, was halted at Khartoum airport on Saturday in the same way as the SCP leader.

He told Radio Dabanga that he believes that the government wants to prevent them from contacting the leaders of the rebel movements and El Sadiq El Mahdi, head of the National Umma Party, these days, “at the same time Khartoum delegations are sent to them to convince them to attend the National Dialogue launch, scheduled to commence on 10 October”.

The communist leader referred to the meeting in Paris on Saturday between Idris Deby, President of Chad, and the leaders of the holdout Darfur armed movements.

He noted that banning opposition leaders from travelling abroad will not persuade them to attend the National Dialogue. “Our position regarding the dialogue process has been agreed on in the Sudan Appeal communiqué and more than one road map.”

Yousef added that both El Sheikh and he will review their travel ban with the security apparatus and plan to file a complaint in this regard.