Elections only way to change govt: Bashir

khartoum — Sudan’s President Omar Al Bashir insisted on Monday that he would not step down after weeks of violent protests and calls for him to quit over a worsening economic crisis.

Protests have rippled across Sudan since December 19 in the most sustained challenge yet to Bashir’s near 30-year rule.

“The government does not change through demonstrations,” Bashir said, speaking to thousands of supporters in Nyala, the main city in South Darfur, a day after protesters demonstrated there for the first time. “We said we have an economic problem and it is not solved via vandalism,” he said in the speech.

Since the protests started nearly four weeks ago, more than 800 people have been arrested, the government said last week. Human rights activists say those detained include political activists, civil society members and journalists. Earlier this month the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) called on Sudanese authorities to release at least three journalists who had been detained after publishing columns in support of the protests.

In Khartoum on Monday, Reuters witnessed a group of journalists being arrested as they attempted to deliver a petition protesting control of the press to the media department of the national security and intelligence service.

Speaking in Khartoum last week, Bashir challenged his opponents to beat him at the ballot box and blamed unnamed foreign powers for provoking weeks of almost daily protests prompted by bread and currency shortages.

On Monday, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi expressed concern about the situation in Sudan.

“If the situation deteriorates further there could be displacement (of people) and there could also be external displacement,” he told reporters during a visit to Cairo.

The government does not change through demonstrations. We said we have an economic problem and it is not solved via vandalism

Omar Al Bashir, Sudan President