Sudan police throws tear gas at Omdurman mosques Umma leader

After the Friday prayers, the Sudanese riot police has thrown tear gas at demonstrating people inside the Wadi Nubawi mosques in Omdurman, the twin town of Khartoum. The number of casualties is not yet known. Demonstrations are also in progress in other states in Sudan.The mosques are the home base of the leader of the National Umma Party (NUP), El Sadig El Mahdi, who was arrested by security forces last Saturday. The entire area of the mosques is now surrounded by police. El Mahdi is also an imam of the islamic Ansar movement, the sufi sect in Sudan, which normally prays at these mosques in Omdurman.Besides demonstrations in Khartoum, followers of El Mahdi in White Nile state also started to demonstrate. In El Gezira’s Abba, in the El Koon mosques, hundreds of protesters shouted slogans. In Rebak, followers of the Ansar tradition also were demonstrating. The angry mob shouted: “No Dialogue with the enemy”, referring to the President’s National Dialogue initiative with all political parties.El Mahdi calls for meetingThe Umma Party leader wrote from prison that his detention was ‘carried out by the hawks of the regime and some state organs’, warning that the political and economic situation, as well as the rampant insecurity in Sudan, may open the door widely to “violent counter-attacks, military coups, and popular uprisings”. He called for the formation of a large meeting, attended by all political and civil forces, in order to “demand public freedoms, and to agree on means of expression in support of his position”.The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) filed a complaint against El Mahdi after he had strongly condemned the atrocities committed by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Kordofan and Darfur. He accused the NISS it commanded militias to commit war crimes in Darfur, recruiting non-Sudanese nationals, and operating beyond the scope of the regular armed troops. El Mahdi, also former Prime Minister (1966-67, and 1986-89), was detained at his home in El Mulazimin in Omdurman, and taken to Kober prison in Khartoum North, on Saturday evening.News photo above: The mass demonstration at the Abba mosques in El Gezira, White Nile.News photo 2: Riot police waiting outside the mosquesNews photo 3: Demonstrators in Omdurman Related: El Mahdi detention in Sudan: US Embassy expresses concern (22 May 2014)