First political prisoners freed in Sudan amnesty

Youssif al-Koda is welcomed by his family after his release from Kober prison in Khartoum yesterday.AFP/KhartoumSudanese authorities yesterday released the first seven political prisoners under a presidential amnesty but the opposition said inmates from the country’s war zones were still awaiting freedom. The six men and a woman are all members of the country’s opposition political alliance, said Farouk Abu Issa, who heads a 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 into the embrace of relatives waiting outside Kober Prison in Khartoum North. 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 Hassan al-Bashir said all political prisoners would be freed as the government seeks a broad political dialogue, “including (with) those who are armed”. Opposition members welcomed the move, as tensions ease with South Sudan. One of the liberated prisoners, Youssif al-Koda, who heads the Islamic Centrist Party, said he was ready for Bashir’s dialogue if it was “serious”. “I didn’t do anything against the constitution,” Koda said through a translator. He was arrested about two months ago after signing a document with armed rebels 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 made in early January in Uganda. Amnesty International said they were arrested as a suspected “reprisal” for their parties’ signing of the charter to topple Bashir’s 24-year regime using both armed and peaceful means. One released prisoner is a youth activist arrested only late last month during a demonstration, said Farouk Mohamed Ibrahim, of the Sudanese Organisation for Defence of Rights and Freedoms. 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 would be among those set free. The SPLM-N had been demanding a prisoner release, according to the political opposition. Ibrahim said his organisation is handling the cases of 118 SPLM-N prisoners in southern Blue Nile alone, but it is unclear whether that group will be included in the amnesty. “No SPLM-N has been released,” rebel chairman Malik Agar said in a written message yesterday. He said earlier he was unsure which political prisoners Bashir had been referring to. Rebels from the far-west Darfur region have also been detained. The US embassy in Khartoum said it welcomed Bashir’s “call for dialogue with all political forces”, as well as the intention to release all political prisoners. Bashir’s speech elaborated on an offer made last week by Vice President Ali Osman Taha, who invited the SPLM-N and opposition political parties to join a constitutional dialogue. Sudan needs a new constitution to replace the 2005 document based on a peace agreement which ended a 23-year civil war and led to South Sudan’s separation in July 2011.