UK-based SCP member held in Sudan

A UK-based member of the opposition Sudanese Congress Party (SCP) was detained for the second time by Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in Khartoum yesterday. The Party leadership condemns the arrest as “clear targeting of the SCP”.

The Deputy President of the SCP, Khaled Omar, told Radio Dabanga that the NISS summoned Nabil El Nuweiri yesterday morning. El Nuweiri is a member of the SCP who is based in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and is visiting Sudan on short leave.

Omar said that there has been no contact with El Nuweiri since he reported to the NISS offices.

On August 29, El Nuweiri was arrested at Khartoum North Criminal Court while attending the ruling session in the controversial case of the University of Khartoum student Asim Omar, who was found guilty of the murder of a policeman during student protests in May 2017  .

On that occasion, El Nuweiri was released after several hours of detention.

'SCP targeted'

Omar asserts that the arrests are a clear targeting of the SCP, pointing to the arrest of a number of party leaders and affiliates during the last period.

Most recently, the former SCP head, Ibrahim El Sheikh, together with the party’s political secretary, Abubakar Yousif, El Sheikh was held by NISS agents at a checkpoint in Jebel Awlia, south of Khartoum on 19 July, after a visit to a large group of Darfuri students who were barred from entering the Sudanese capital after they had collectively resigned from the Bakht El Rida University.

El Sheikh and Yousif were released on August 12 after having been detained without charges for almost four weeks.