KHARTOUM: Thousands of people cheered Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir in a show of support for his embattled regime in Khartoum Wednesday, as riot police fired tear gas at protesters at a rival anti-government demonstration.
Hundreds of police officers, soldiers and security agents, some carrying machine guns, were deployed around the site of the pro-Bashir rally in the Green Yard, a large open space in the capital.
Thousands of men, women and children carrying pro-Bashir banners arrived in buses from early in the morning, almost filling the site.
The rally was the first held in Khartoum in support of the president since protests erupted.
"This gathering sends a message to those who think that Sudan will become like other countries that have been destroyed," Bashir told a cheering crowd.
"We will stop anyone who destroys our properties."
In the initial protests, which erupted on December 19 in towns and villages before spreading to Khartoum, several buildings of Bashir's ruling National Congress Party were torched.
Angry demonstrators took to the streets after a government decision to triple the price of bread at a time when the country faces an acute shortage of foreign currency and 70 percent inflation.
Analysts have described the protests as the biggest threat yet to Bashir's regime.
Authorities say at least 19 people including two security personnel have been killed during the demonstrations, but Human Rights Watch has put the death toll at 40, including children.
Crowds chanted "Allahu akbar" (God is greatest) and "Yes, yes Bashir, we will follow you" at the rally, where the president was accompanied by his wife and a group of ministers.
As soon as Bashir arrived, mobile phone networks and the internet were shut down in and around the rally site.
"Those who tried to destroy Sudan... put conditions on us to solve our problems, I tell them that our dignity is more than the price of dollars," Bashir said in an apparent dig at Washington, which had imposed a trade embargo on Khartoum in 1997.
The embargo was lifted in October 2017, but Sudanese officials including Bashir have continued to blame Washington for the country's economic woes.
Dressed in a khaki shirt and trousers and waving his trademark cane, a smiling Bashir greeted the crowd as men and women whistled and waved flags.
"We are with our leader because our brothers want to destroy our country, but we will save it," a woman supporter told AFP.
Bashir, who has ordered the police to use "less force" on demonstrators, has blamed the violence during protests on conspirators, whom he has not named.
"Those who conspired against us and planted traitors amongst us are those who carried out arson attacks and caused damage," he told a group of soldiers on Tuesday at an army base in the town of Atbara, where the first protest erupted last month.
"Some people are saying that the army is taking power," Bashir said, slamming some political groups who previously were with the government but have now called for his resignation.
"I have no problem with that, because the army always guards the security of our homeland."
Soon after the pro-Bashir rally ended, crowds of protesters, clapping and whistling, took to the streets of Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum, for yet another anti-government demonstration.
Chanting "Freedom, Peace, Justice" and "Revolution is the people's choice" they blocked a key road but were quickly confronted with tear gas by riot police, witnesses said.
Residents took many of the protesters into their homes when the police fired tear gas, according to onlookers.
Videos posted on social media showed some demonstrators pelting police officers with rocks. The footage could not be verified independently.
More than 800 protesters, opposition leaders, activists and journalists have been arrested since the unrest began, officials say, insisting that the situation has now stabilised even as protests rumble on.
On Wednesday, Sudan slammed Britain, Canada, Norway and the United States for their joint statement expressing concern at the situation in the country.
"The ministry of foreign affairs rejects and condemns this biased statement that is far from reality," the ministry said.
"Sudan is committed to freedom of expression and for peaceful demonstrations."
On Tuesday, the four countries had urged Khartoum to ensure a "transparent and independent investigation into the deaths of protesters".
They also called for the release of all those detained without charge, warning that Khartoum's actions would "have an impact" on its relations with their governments.
Crowds back Bashir at Sudan rally as police tear gas rival protest
Crowds back Bashir at Sudan rally as police tear gas rival protest
- The rally by hundreds of backers of Bashir came as rival protesters prepared to stage their own demonstration in Khartoum
- Since December angry protesters have taken to the streets after a government decision to triple the price of bread
Palestinian citizens in Israel demand more security from violence
- Protests and strikes are sweeping Israel over record levels of violence targeting the country’s Palestinian citizens
- At least 26 people were killed in January alone, adding to a record-breaking toll of more than 250 last year
KAFR YASIF, Israel: Nabil Safiya had taken a break from studying for a biology exam to meet a cousin at a pizza parlor when a gunman on a motorcycle rode past and fired, killing the 15-year-old as he sat in a black Renault.
The shooting — which police later said was a case of mistaken identity — stunned his hometown of Kafr Yasif, long besieged, like many Palestinian towns in Israel, by a wave of gang violence and family feuds.
“There is no set time for the gunfire anymore,” said Nabil’s father, Ashraf Safiya. “They can kill you in school, they can kill you in the street, they can kill you in the football stadium.”
The violence plaguing Israel’s Arab minority has become an inescapable part of daily life. Activists have long accused authorities of failing to address the issue and say that sense has deepened under Israel’s current far-right government.
One out of every five citizens in Israel is Palestinian. The rate of crime-related killings among them is more than 22 times higher than that for Jewish Israelis, while arrest and indictment rates for those crimes are far lower. Critics cite the disparities as evidence of entrenched discrimination and neglect.
A growing number of demonstrations are sweeping Israel. Thousands marched in Tel Aviv late Saturday to demand action, while Arab communities have gone on strike, closing shops and schools.
In November, after Nabil was gunned down, residents marched through the streets, students boycotted their classes and the Safiya family turned their home into a shrine with pictures and posters of Nabil.
The outrage had as much to do with what happened as with how often it keeps happening.
“There’s a law for the Jewish society and a different law for Palestinian society,” Ghassan Munayyer, a political activist from Lod, a mixed city with a large Palestinian population, said at a recent protest.
An epidemic of violence
Some Palestinian citizens have reached the highest echelons of business and politics in Israel. Yet many feel forsaken by authorities, with their communities marked by underinvestment and high unemployment that fuels frustration and distrust toward the state.
Nabil was one of a record 252 Palestinian citizens to be killed in Israel last year, according to data from Abraham Initiatives, an Israeli nongovernmental organization that promotes coexistence and safer communities. The toll continues to climb, with at least 26 additional crime-related killings in January.
Walid Haddad, a criminologist who teaches at Ono Academic College and who previously worked in Israel’s national security ministry, said that organized crime thrives off weapons trafficking and loan‑sharking in places where people lack access to credit. Gangs also extort residents and business owners for “protection,” he said.
Based on interviews with gang members in prisons and courts, he said they can earn anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars, depending on whether the job is torching cars, shooting at buildings or assassinating rival leaders.
“If they fire at homes or people once or twice a month, they can buy cars, go on trips. It’s easy money,” Haddad said, noting a widespread sense of impunity.
The violence has stifled the rhythm of life in many Palestinian communities. In Kafr Yasif, a northern Israel town of 10,000, streets empty by nightfall, and it’s not uncommon for those trying to sleep to hear gunshots ringing through their neighborhoods.
Prosecutions lag
Last year, only 8 percent of killings of Palestinian citizens led to charges filed against suspects, compared with 55 percent in Jewish communities, according to Abraham Initiatives.
Lama Yassin, the Abraham Initiatives’ director of shared cities and regions, said strained relations with police long discouraged Palestinian citizens from calling for new police stations or more police officers in their communities.
Not anymore.
“In recent years, because people are so depressed and feel like they’re not able to practice day-to-day life ... Arabs are saying, ‘Do whatever it takes, even if it means more police in our towns,’” Yassin said.
The killings have become a rallying cry for Palestinian-led political parties after successive governments pledged to curb the bloodshed with little results. Politicians and activists see the spate of violence as a reflection of selective enforcement and police apathy.
“We’ve been talking about this for 10 years,” said Knesset member Aida Touma-Suleiman.
She labeled policing in Palestinian communities “collective punishment,” noting that when Jews are victims of violence, police often set up roadblocks in neighboring Palestinian towns, flood areas with officers and arrest suspects en masse.
“The only side that can be able to smash a mafia is the state and the state is doing nothing except letting (organized crime) understand that they are free to do whatever they want,” Touma-Suleiman said.
Many communities feel impunity has gotten worse, she added, under National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who with authority over the police has launched aggressive and visible campaigns against other crimes, targeting protests and pushing for tougher operations in east Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank.
Israeli police reject allegations of skewed priorities, saying that killings in these communities are a top priority. Police also have said investigations are challenging because witnesses don’t always cooperate.
“Investigative decisions are guided by evidence, operational considerations, and due process, not by indifference or lack of prioritization,” police said in a statement.
Unanswered demands
In Kafr Yasif, Ashraf Safiya vowed his son wouldn’t become just another statistic.
He had just gotten home from his work as a dentist and off the phone with Nabil when he learned about the shooting. He raced to the scene to find the car window shattered as Nabil was being rushed to the hospital. Doctors there pronounced him dead.
“The idea was that the blood of this boy would not be wasted,” Safiya said of protests he helped organize. “If people stop caring about these cases, we’re going to just have another case and another case.”
Authorities said last month they were preparing to file an indictment against a 23-year-old arrested in a neighboring town in connection with the shooting. They said the intended target was a relative, referring to the cousin with Nabil that night.
And they described Nabil as a victim of what they called “blood feuds within Arab society.”
At a late January demonstration in Kafr Yasif, marchers carried portraits of Nabil and Nidal Mosaedah, another local boy killed in the violence. Police broke up the protest, saying it lasted longer than authorized, and arrested its leaders, including the former head of the town council.
The show of force, residents said, may have quashed one protest, but did nothing to halt the killings.
