Umma Party responds to ‘defective’ complaint by Sudanese security

On Wednesday, the National Umma Party (NUP) formally responded to the complaint made by the Sudanese security service against the party.

In an interview with Dabanga, lawyer and human rights activist Nabil Adib Abdallah stressed that the complaint made by the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) against the NUP is defective.

“The subject of the complaint is related to the policy of the state as a whole, and the NISS has no right to start such a case,” he said.

On 12 January, the NUP received a letter from the Political Parties Affairs Council with the request to reply within one week to the complaint submitted by the security apparatus against the party.

The NISS demanded from the Political Parties Registrar to freeze the activities of the NUP, for violating Articles 2, 4, and 40 of the 2005 Interim Constitution that prohibit registered parties to cooperate with armed rebel movements, and Article 14 of the 2007 Political Parties Act.

The complaint is based on the signing by NUP leader El Sadig El Mahdi of the Paris Declaration on 8 August 2014, together with the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF, an alliance of the main rebel movements), and the Sudan Appeal, on 3 December, with the SRF, the National Consensus Forces (NCF), and the Civil Society Initiative. In both political communiqués, the signatories call for a regime change, by dismantling the one-party state, and rebuild the country on democratic principles and equal citizenship.

In its reply, the NUP requested the Political Parties Registrar to repeal the complaint, as it constitutes a violation of the Interim Constitution and other Sudanese laws.

Abdallah pointed out that representation of the state’s individuals and entities is the exclusive competence of the Minister of Justice, whereas the security apparatus has no competence to file a complaint.

Sudan Appeal

The lawyer said that the Sudan Appeal is “a political statement responding to the call made by President Omar Al Bashir in early 2014 for a broad national dialogue”.

“Thabo Mbeki, the chairman of the AU High-level Panel (AUHIP), assigned by the AU to lead the Sudanese peace talks on Darfur, and the Two Areas (South Kordofan and the Blue Nile, RD), had requested the opposition forces to identify their negotiating positions with regard to the proposed dialogue.

“The Sudan Appeal, signed at the AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa, follows the decisions made during the 456th Meeting of the AU Peace and Security Council on 12 September 2014, with regard to AUHIP’s facilitation of the Sudanese national dialogue process,” Abdallah added.

He stressed that “there is nothing in the Constitution or the law that prevents political parties from meeting with armed movements, and reaching a common understanding with them, as long as such meetings aim at the ending of the wars, participation of the rebel groups in a democratic political process, and the partners resort to peaceful means to resolve constitutional differences”.