KHARTOUM: Sudanese security agents on Wednesday arrested two leading figures including an ex-minister from the opposition Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC), the civilian group driving protests against last year’s military coup.
The men are the latest in a long line of activists detained since the October 25 military takeover led by army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, in which the civilian leadership and FFC figures were ousted.
Plain-clothed officers arrested Khaled Omar Youssef, a former minister of cabinet affairs, during a meeting of the FFC bloc at the headquarters of the Sudanese Congress Party, senior member Mohamed Hassan Arabi said.
Officers said they were affiliated with a police station in Khartoum without elaborating, Arabi added.
Also arrested was Wagdi Saleh, a leading figure of the protest movement and an FFC spokesman, according to FFC leader Omar Al-Degeir.
The reasons for their arrest were not immediately clear.
The arrests come a day after the two men joined an FFC delegation for talks with UN special representative Volker Perthes, as part of efforts launched last month hoped to resolve the deepening crisis.
Leading FFC figure Yasser Arman said the latest arrests “will affect the UN process.”
Youssef and Saleh were among the figures who were detained immediately after the coup, before they were released weeks later.
Since the coup, the authorities have launched a deadly crackdown on regular mass anti-coup protests, leaving at least 79 people killed and hundreds wounded, according to independent medics.
The October military power grab, the latest coup in Sudan since the independence, has sparked wide international condemnation and punitive measures.
The United States, which suspended $700 million in assistance, has warned there would be “consequences” if a crackdown by the authorities continues.
“Arbitrary arrests and detention of political figures, civil society activists and journalists undermine efforts to resolve Sudan’s political crisis,” Lucy Tamlyn, the US charge d’affaires in Sudan, wrote on Twitter late Wednesday.
The BBC said three of its reporters were also briefly arrested on Monday while covering anti-coup protests in Khartoum, but the trio were released later that day.
Multiple journalists have been targeted while covering the protests.
Sudan arrests leading anti-coup bloc figures
https://arab.news/wp52z
Sudan arrests leading anti-coup bloc figures
- The men are the latest in a long line of activists detained since the October 25 military takeover
- Plain-clothed officers arrested Khaled Omar Youssef, a former minister of cabinet affairs
Saad Hariri pledges to contest May election
- Beirut rally draws large crowds on anniversary of his father’s assassination
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s former Prime Minister Saad Hariri announced on Saturday that his movement, which represents the majority of Lebanon’s Sunni community, would take part in upcoming parliamentary elections scheduled for May.
The Future Movement had suspended its political activities in 2022.
Hariri was addressing a large gathering of Future Movement supporters as Lebanon marked the 21st anniversary of the assassination of his father and former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, at Martyrs’ Square in front of his tomb.
He said his movement remained committed to the approach of “moderation.”
A minute’s silence was observed by the crowd in Martyrs’ Square at the exact time when, in 2005, a suicide truck carrying about 1,000 kg of explosives detonated along Beirut’s seaside road as Rafik Hariri’s motorcade passed, killing him along with 21 others, including members of his security guards and civilians, and injuring 200 people.
Four members of Hezbollah were accused of carrying out the assassination and were tried in absentia by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.
The crowd waved Lebanese flags and banners of the Future Movement as they awaited Saad Hariri, who had returned to Beirut from the UAE, where he resides, specifically to commemorate the anniversary, as has been an annual tradition.
Hariri said that “after 21 years, the supporters of Hariri’s approach are still many,” denouncing the “rumors and intimidation” directed at him.
He added: “Moderation is not hesitation … and patience is not weakness. Rafik Hariri’s project is not a dream that will fade. He was the model of a statesman who believed, until martyrdom, that ‘no one is greater than their country.’ The proof is his enduring place in the minds, hearts and consciences of the Lebanese people.”
Hariri said he chose to withdraw from political life after “it became required that we cover up failure and compromise the state, so we said no and chose to step aside — because politics at the expense of the country’s dignity and the project of the state has no meaning.”
He said: “The Lebanese are weary, and after years of wars, divisions, alignments and armed bastions, they deserve a normal country with one constitution, one army, and one legitimate authority over weapons — because Lebanon is one and will remain one. Notions of division have collapsed in the face of reality, history and geography, and the illusions of annexation and hegemony have fallen with those who pursued them, who ultimately fled.”
Hariri said the Future Movement’s project is “One Lebanon, Lebanon first — a Lebanon that will neither slide back into sectarian strife or internal fighting, nor be allowed to do so.”
He added that the Taif Agreement is “the solution and must be implemented in full,” arguing that “political factions have treated it selectively by demanding only what suits them — leaving the agreement unfulfilled and the country’s crises unresolved.”
He said: “When we call for the full implementation of the Taif Agreement, we mean: weapons exclusively in the hands of the state, administrative decentralization, the abolition of political sectarianism, the establishment of a senate and full implementation of the truce agreement. All of this must be implemented — fully and immediately — so we can overcome our chronic problems and crises together.
“Harirism will continue to support any Arab rapprochement, and reject any Arab discord. Those who seek to sow discord between the Gulf and Arab countries will harm only themselves and their reputation.
“We want to maintain the best possible relations with all Arab countries, starting with our closest neighbor, Syria — the new Syria, the free Syria that has rid itself of the criminal and tyrannical regime that devastated it and Lebanon, and spread its poison in the Arab world.”
Hariri said he saluted “the efforts of unification, stabilization and reconstruction led by Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa.”
When asked about the Future Movement’s participation in parliamentary elections following his withdrawal from politics, he said: “Tell me when parliamentary elections will be held, and I will tell you what the Future Movement will do. I promise you that, when the elections take place, they will hear our voices, and they will count our votes.”
The US Embassy in Lebanon shared a post announcing that Ambassador Michel Issa laid a wreath at the grave of Rafik Hariri.
Hariri’s legacy “to forge peace and prosperity continues to resonate years later with renewed significance,” the embassy said.
