Sudanese Baath Party leader held incommunicado

Adil Khalafallah, a leader of the Sudanese Baath Party was detained by agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) in Khartoum on Saturday. Several members of the Sudanese Congress Party are still being held in semi-detention.

Khalafallah was on his way to his office, when NISS officers stopped him and took him to an unknown destination, the party’s spokesman told Radio Dabanga.

“They confiscated his car as well as his mobile telephone with which they made phone calls, and forcibly accessed his Facebook account.”

Spokesman Mohamed Diya’eldin demanded that the NISS “release him immediately. We hold the security apparatus responsible for any harm done to him.”

He stressed that the “security attack will not deter us from continuing with its public campaigns to overthrow the regime”.

Last Thursday, Baath Party activists began their campaign against the ruling National Congress Party by writing slogans calling for a popular revolt on the walls of public institutions in the capital Khartoum.

Sudanese Congress Party

On Saturday afternoon, Mohamed Idris Jeddo, member of the Sudanese Congress Party (SCP) was transferred from the NISS office in El Amarat district in Khartoum to a hospital after he became unwell.

Jeddo, as well as SCP cadres Khaled Omar Yousef, Majdi Okasha, and Widad Derwish, has been being held in semi-detention by the security apparatus since early August. They, and party activist Mohamed Kaddam, detained on 22 August, must report to the NISS office each day from the morning until late in the evening.

Derwish was briefly held incommunicado after she refused to appear at the office on 12 August.

'Arbitrary detentions'

In a joint statement on Saturday, the international Human Rights Watch and the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies called for the power of the NISS to be curbed, the release of political detainees, and the restoration of freedom of expression and assembly in the country.

The two organisations stated that at least 17 opposition activists were held by the NISS in August, most of them belonging to the SCP. The detainees have been subjected to mental and physical abuses.

The security actions are part of a disturbing pattern of harassment and arbitrary detentions of opposition members in order to punish them for speaking in public on political issues, the statement reads.

The SCP started its public campaign against the government last year by organising rallies in neighbourhoods and markets in various parts of Sudan.