KHARTOUM: Sudanese authorities yesterday freed the first seven political prisoners under a presidential amnesty but the opposition said inmates from the country’s war zones were still awaiting a taste of freedom.
The six men and a woman are all members of the country’s opposition political alliance, said Farouk Abu Issa, who heads the coalition of more than 20 parties.
Most had been held for nearly three months.
“It is a step forward but we are waiting for many other steps,” Issa said, adding there are “hundreds” of prisoners across the country including in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states where rebels have been fighting government forces for almost two years. The six men walked free to the embrace of relatives waiting outside Kober Prison in Khartoum North, a photographer said. The woman was released at a different location.
Issa accused authorities of holding some of them in solitary confinement, while three had been kept at security service detention centres, he said.
In a speech opening a new session of parliament on Monday, President Omar Al Bashir said all political prisoners would be freed as the government seeks a broad political dialogue, a move welcomed by the opposition as tensions ease with South Sudan.
“We confirm we will continue our communication with all political and social powers without excluding anyone, including those who are armed, for a national dialogue which will bring a solution to all the issues,” Bashir said.
One of the liberated prisoners, Youssif Al Koda who heads the Islamic Centrist Party, said he is ready for Bashir’s dialogue if it is “serious.” “I didn’t do anything against the constitution,” Koda said through a translator.
He was arrested about two months ago after signing with armed rebels a document calling for regime change.
Other freed prisoners, including opposition party members Hisham Mufti and Abdul Aziz Khalid, were held for their involvement with a similar charter reached early January in Uganda.
Amnesty International said they were arrested as a suspected “reprisal” for their parties’ signing of the charter for toppling Bashir’s 24-year regime using both armed and peaceful means.
Opposition members were still waiting to see whether prisoners belonging to the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N) in South Kordofan and Blue Nile will be among those set free. The SPLM-N had been demanding a prisoner release, according to the political opposition.
Farouk Mohammed Ibrahim, of the Sudanese Organisation for Defence of Rights and Freedoms, said his organisation is handling the cases of 118 SPLM-N prisoners in southern Blue Nile alone.
AFP
