Sudan: NUP cadres demand release of Maryam El Mahdi

Omdurman 19 August 2014:- A large group of National Umma Party (NUP) members, among them prominent party cadres, gathered in front of the NUP headquarters in Omdurman, on Tuesday. They demanded the immediate release of the party’s Co-Vice President, Dr Maryam El Sadig El Mahdi.

 The daughter of NUP’s leader, El Sadig El Mahdi, was detained on 11 August by agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) upon her return to Sudan after attending the historic Paris conference. She was removed from the aircraft after it landed at Khartoum.

 The NUP leader was taken to the premises of the Political Security Service department in Khartoum North. On 12 August, she was moved to the federal Women’s Prison in Omdurman, the sister city of Khartoum.

 The head of the judicial circuit at the National Congress Party (NCP), El Fadel Haj Suleiman, said that Dr El Mahdi will probably face charges of spying for rebel movements.

 Dr El Sadig was a force majeure in organising last week’s summit in Paris that was the first face-to-face meeting of the NUP and the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF, an alliance of the main rebel movements) leaderships.

 On 8 August, SRF chairman Malik Agar and NUP leader El Sadig El Mahdi signed the joint Paris Declaration, in which they call for the unification of the Sudanese opposition forces, in order to end the armed conflicts in the country, and work together on democratic reforms.

 The NUP has reiterated its commitment to the Paris Declaration. NUP co-vice president, Gen. Fadlallah Burma Nasir, told Radio Dabanga that the detention of Dr El Sadig is “more than an affirmation of the importance of the Declaration”.

Radio Dabanga