Police use teargas as protesters again demand that Bashir goes
Thousands took to the streets in the Sudanese capital yesterday to call for President Omar Al Bashir to step down, the latest in nearly three weeks of demonstrations against his 29year autocratic rule.
Protesters gathered at several points in Khartoum before marching on the presidential palace in the city centre. They chanted: “Freedom, peace and justice, revolution is the people’s choice.” Police used teargas to disperse the protesters, who would regroup and resume the march only to be attacked by teargas again.
“We were about 100 people ... we started cheering and marching from Al Said Abdulrahman street. Police came and used teargas on us. We ran in different directions,” a female protester told The National. “When I heard gunfire I froze, but my friend pulled me out of there.”
Activists said police blocked a bridge over the Nile that links Khartoum’s twin city of Omdurman to the capital’s centre to prevent protesters from joining forces. They said unusually large numbers of police and plainclothes security men were in Khartoum in anticipation of the protests.
Two previous attempts to march on the palace were thwarted by security forces firing teargas and live ammunition. At least 40 people have been killed since the protests began on December 19 over high bread prices and quickly spread into nationwide demonstrations calling for the government to step down.
“I think the way authorities handled the protests was very wrong – the protests are peaceful and people have legitimate demands,” a government official told The National.
“They should let them reach the presidential palace and deliver the memo and even broadcast the event in the media to show that the country is democratic and free instead of the bad image authorities are reflecting now by suppressing the protesters.
“Killing unarmed citizens and facing peaceful protesters with violence is not acceptable. The government should act differently in order not to lose the nation completely.”
Yesterday, police arrested at least five Khartoum University lecturers after they staged a brief protest on campus in solidarity with the demonstrators, according to activists in the capital.
Authorities have detained scores of activists and opposition leaders during the last two weeks.
There were also protests in the town of Wad Madani, south of Khartoum, where police used teargas and fired in the air to disperse protesters, as well as in Atbara, a railway city north of the capital where the protests began last month.
The Sudanese Professionals Association, one of the groups co-ordinating the demonstrations, declared yesterday’s protests a success.
“The SPA has two objectives: to end this regime and to form a suitable democratic one, and the protests will continue until we achieve that,” SPA spokesman Mohamed Alasbat told The National.
“SPA has social demands to deliver to the National Assembly regarding living situation of citizens and salaries,” said Mr Alasbat, referring to a march to the National Assembly planned for Wednesday.
“We will continue our efforts in co-operation with the opposition until the regime falls and a democratic replacement takes over.”
Mr Al Bashir has been in power since he led a military coup 29 years ago.
He has shown no signs that he might step down any time soon and continues to blame the country’s problems on international sanctions and plots.
His rule has been defined by turmoil and conflict while the economy lurched from one crisis to another.
The secession of the mostly animist and Christian south of the country in 2011 deprived Sudan of about three quarters of its oil wealth.