Sudan: Release of Two Prominent Members of The Opposition

On 29 May 2016, after more than one month in detention, Mohamed Faroug Suliman Mahmoud and Murtada Ibrahim Idriss Habani, two senior members of Sudanese opposition parties, were finally released by the authorities. They had been arrested by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) on 23 April 2016 after having joined a peaceful demonstration that took place at the University of Kordofan.

These two opposition activists were arbitrarily arrested by plainclothes officers and dragged out of the demonstration before being transferred to the NISS facility in North Khartoum. They remained secretly detained there for several days under the provision ofthe National Security Act of 2010, until their relatives were eventually informed of their place of detention, although they were systematically denied the right to visit them.

Considering that Mohamed and Murtada wereonly exercising their rights to freedom of expression and of peaceful assembly when they were arrested, Alkarama and the Arab Coalition for Sudan (ACS) had seized the Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association (SR FPAA) on 11 May 2016 with the aim of ending their arbitrary detention.

Although the release of Mohamed and Murtada is a positive development, Alkarama and ACS remain concerned over the recent crackdown against peaceful demonstrators in universities campuses in Sudan insofar as several students of the University of Khartoum are still detained incommunicado in reprisals for their participation to peaceful demonstrations that took place across the country in April 2016.

For more information or an interview, please contact media@alkarama.org (Tel : +41 22 734 1008).