Youth activists detained in North Kordofan

At least 12 youth activists were detained in North Kordofan on Thursday night after attending a meeting to plan a demonstration scheduled for today.

One of the activists who attended the meeting in the state capital of El Obeid but managed to escape the raid by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) told Radio Dabanga that at least 12 young men were detained, including two of his colleagues, Osman Mohamed and Mohamed Tijani.

He said the NISS detention campaign came after professionals and political activists decided in a meeting to organise a demonstration in the city on Sunday.

Opposition heads detained

A NISS force held Omar El Degeir, head of the opposition Sudanese Congress Party, from his house in Khartoum on Friday.

In a statement, the party called the detention “an attempt to stop the rising tide of the masses”, stressing that the regime would not be able to stop it.

Shortly before his detention, El Degeir told Radio Dabanga that efforts are being made by the opposition to establish a management centre for the coordination of the resistance in  the country.

He urged the Sudanese to continue the protests until they get rid of the regime.  “The Sudanese people’s only option is to protest in the streets and at public squares to grab their fate and restore their kidnapped homeland,” he said.

Last week, El Obeid Criminal Court sentenced the head of the opposition Sudanese Congress Party in North Kordofan, Hatim Mirghani, together with eight others to six months imprisonment under the State of Emergency.

Agents of the NISS detained Mirghani from Um Rawaba a week ago, and moved him to the detention of the security apparatus in El Obeid with a number of detainees, on the same day Husseini Ahmed was arrested after addressing demonstrators in El Nahud in West Kordofan on Friday.