Sudan: ruling military junta releases political prisoners
Mohammed al-Fekki Suleiman, former member of the Sovereign Council of Sudan, here on December 21, 2020 in Kharthoum.
© AFP - EBRAHIM HAMID
Text by: RFI Follow
2 mins
Two prominent Sudanese opposition figures have been released after two months in prison.
He is a former civilian government minister and a former member of the Sovereign Council, who were arrested in early February by the military authorities during a major wave of arrests.
They were being held in Kober prison in Khartoum.
Is this a gesture of goodwill from the authorities towards the opposition?
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The first significant release took place on Tuesday, March 26: Khaled Omar Youssef, former minister of the Sudanese civil government, was released.
He had been part of the main civilian political alliance in the country, the Forces of Freedom and Change (FLC).
This release was followed by that of Mohammed al-Fekki Suleiman, a former member of the Sovereign Council.
He was also chairman of the committee in charge of recovering property looted by the former regime of
Omar al-Bashir
.
The committee has since been dissolved by the junta.
"
All the FLC leaders who have been detained
in recent weeks have been released
," lawyer Azhari al-Haj told AFP on Wednesday, April 27, who had earlier announced the release of his client Mohammed al-Fekki.
Among those released on Wednesday are also Taha Othman, Wagdi Saleh and Abibakr Faisal, all members of the Forces for Freedom and Change.
Is this a gesture of openness?
At the beginning of April, the military authorities had promised to release political detainees to pave the way for an inter-Sudanese dialogue.
But for the opposition,
the junta
had no choice.
Six months after General al-Burhan
's coup
, the country still lacks a civilian government.
And to hope to unblock foreign aid, the military had to give in to international pressure.
The economic situation has also deteriorated and the demonstrations against the putsch have not run out of steam.
According to one researcher, these releases indicate that international pressure – including sanctions – may be starting to work.
Rapes, deaths recorded in Sudanese jails
According to the UN, since the military putsch, a thousand people have been detained, including 148 children, 94 others have been killed and 13 cases of rape of women have been recorded.
The UN special representative for Sudan, Volker Perthes, welcomed on Twitter the releases which “
follow the decision of the responsible judge that there are no grounds for their detention
”.
I welcome the release of Khalid Omar Yousif @KHOYousif, Muhammad al-Faki @melfaki_s, Babikar Faisal, Wajda Salih @wagdi_salih, Taha Osman and others.
Their release eventually follows the decision by the responsible judge that there are no grounds for their detention.
— Volker Perthes (@volkerperthes) April 27, 2022
This Thursday, Human Rights Watch indicates in
a report that the Sudanese security forces have detained
since December hundreds of demonstrators who have been beaten and mistreated.
According to the organization, detained children have been completely stripped and women have been threatened with sexual violence.
HRW calls on Sudan's partners to impose individual sanctions on those responsible for its abuses.
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Sudan
Abdel Fattah al-Burhan
Omar al-Bashir