Sudanese Alliance Party head detained, questioned

Agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) detained the head of the Sudanese Alliance Party, Kamal Ismail, today, after his return from a meeting with the Sudan Appeal signatories in Paris.

Ismail reported in a press statement later today that officers of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) held him after his arrival at Khartoum International Airport on Sunday morning.

They took him to one of the security offices at the airport and questioned him about the Paris meeting for about an hour before releasing him. His passport was taken and he was told to return after a week to pick it up.

The signatories of the Sudan Appeal, in the conclusion of its meeting on Friday, renewed its stance on the continuing political and economic crises in the country. The current government has to be removed by either a peaceful transition, or by a popular uprising.

On 8 November, Mohamed Mukhtar El Khateeb, secretary-general of the Communist Party of Sudan (CPoS), senior CPoS member Tarig Abdelmajeed, and the head of the Unified Federal Party, Jalaa El Azhari, were barred from travelling to Paris by the security apparatus.

Sudan Appeal

The Sudan Appeal, a two-page communiqué calling for regime change, was signed in Addis Ababa on 3 December last year, by the Sudan Revolutionary Front rebel alliance, the National Umma Party, the National Consensus Forces (NCF, a coalition of opposition parties), and the Civil Society Initiative (CSI).

In the communiqué, the joint opposition forces refer to the armed conflicts and humanitarian suffering in the country and the economic and political bankruptcy. As Sudan is slipping into an abyss, the allied opposition stated that a comprehensive solution could not be adjourned much longer. The Sudan Appeal signatories agreed to cooperate in order to dismantle the one-party system, for the sake of a rebuilding Sudan based on democratic values and equal citizenship.

The leaders of the NCF and the CSI were detained by NISS officers on 6 December, a day after they returned to Khartoum. They were tried for charges of instigating violence against the state and violating the Constitution, until they were suddenly released on 9 April, four days before the start of the general election.