Sudanese opposition leaders to appeal to UN human rights expert

Dr Maryam El Mahdi, co vice-president of the National Umma Party (NUP), and the other opposition leaders who were blocked from travelling to France on Monday, will send appeals of protest to the UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan, and the African Court of Human Rights.

Apart from El Mahdi, security officers prevented six other opposition leaders from leaving Khartoum International Airport in the early hours of Monday morning. They intended to travel to Strasbourg, to participate in a European Parliament hearing on Sudan, scheduled to be held today.

She told Radio Dabanga that agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) stopped her, Mohamed Abdallah El Doma, NUP co vice-president and head of the Darfur Bar Association, Hassan Imam Hassan, senior NUP member, Tarig Abdelmajeed, member of the Secretariat of the National Consensus Forces, Yousef Siddig, member of the Political Bureau of the Sudanese Communist Party, Fathi Nuri of the Baath Party, and Muheed Siddig, representative of the Sudanese civil society, and took their passports.

“By this action, the NISS violated our constitutional rights to freedom of movement, and our human rights, as we were briefly detained too, without being informed why,” she said. “We will write an appeal to the UN Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Sudan, the African Court of Human Rights, and other competent international mechanisms.”

El Mahdi further said that NUP leader El Sadig El Mahdi, accompanied by a number of NUP cadres, arrived in France on Monday, to participate in the EU parliamentary hearing. She explained that the signatories of the Sudan Appeal, a political communique calling for regime-change, were invited to the hearing by the European Parliament, in cooperation with the Sudan Centre for Transitional Justice and Peace Studies. The meeting would discuss options for reaching peace in Sudan.

“We expect that an emergency session with the chairman of the European Parliament will be arranged to discuss the actions of the NISS in preventing us, and others last week, to attend the hearing in Strasbourg,” she added.

‘Continuation’

Communist leader Yousef Siddig commented on the travel ban by saying that the action confirms the continuation of the policies of Khartoum regime.

“In the same way, Khartoum will continue to wage war against rebels and civilians alike in Darfur, the Nuba Mountains, and the Blue Nile. It will continue its bombarding of civilian targets, and at the same time block the distribution of relief items,” he told Radio Dabanga.

Nasreldin Hadi Mahdi, co vice-president of the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF) rebel alliance strongly condemned the NISS action today. He said that the action disclosed the regime’s suspicious nature and its fear of the allied opposition forces’ power.

He added that the SRF will stay in contact with the opposition leaders in Khartoum “by digital means, as if they were here with us in France”.