Sudan police detain opposition leaders over rally

12/07/09 | AFP

KHARTOUM — Southern protesters torched offices of Sudan's ruling party after Khartoum police arrested three southern leaders and dozens of protesters on Monday in a crackdown against a pro-reform demonstration.

Pagan Amum, Yassir Arman and Abbas Gumma from the ex-rebel Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) were led away as they arrived at the parliament building in Khartoum's twin city of Omdurman, an AFP correspondent said.

Angry protesters reacted by torching the offices of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) in the southern cities of Wau and Rumbek, two provincial capitals, a southern government official said.

There were no reports of casualties.

Amum is the SPLM?s secretary general, Arman its deputy secretary general in northern Sudan, and Gumma is a state minister at the country's interior ministry.

Arman, who had been taken to a local jail, was injured while in detention and taken to hospital, Mubarak al-Fadl of the opposition Umma party said, without giving further details.

Police had announced that the demonstration to push for reforms ahead of national elections and over an independence referendum for south Sudan would be considered illegal.

Police clashed with the several hundred protesters in Khartoum and Omdurman, using tear-gas and beating them with batons before the crowds dispersed, according to witnesses.

Among those arrested were Siddig al-Turabi, son of veteran Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi, and Khartoum state minister for health Barmina Awrial, along with more than 70 of the demonstrators.

Four daughters and two grandchildren of another opposition leader, Sadiq al-Mahdi, were also arrested, his son Mohammed Ahmed said.

Calm returned to the capital's streets by the afternoon.

Khartoum police issued a statement published on the Sudanese Media Centre website, which is close to the security services, denying they used tear-gas or force to put down the protest.

Security forces blocked roads leading to parliament, with a heavy presence in key areas. They also closed the bridge to Omdurman, which lies on the west bank of the Nile river across from Khartoum.

The SPLM called an emergency meeting in the southern capital of Juba after the crackdown, while southern officials appealed for calm following the burning of the two NCP offices.

\"The burning down of the offices is a sorrowful scene ... we are peaceful people and there is no need for such acts,\" Mark Nyipuoch, a southern state governor, told the UN-run Miraya radio station.

The SPLM and the NCP of President Omar al-Beshir have failed to agree on democratic reforms ahead of elections next April and on a procedural law for the south's referendum scheduled for January 2011.

The national vote will be the first in Sudan since 1986, three years before Beshir toppled a democratically elected government in a bloodless military coup.

The SPLM and around 20 opposition groups called for a \"peaceful protest\" to exert pressure on the NCP.

Registration for regional, legislative and presidential elections began on November 1 and was extended until Monday after a request from opposition parties and the former southern rebels.

Khartoum state announced the closure of schools on Monday and a day off for public employees to underline the government's \"engagement ... towards democratic reform\" and to aid voter registration.

Reform and changes to the election law were key aspects of a 2005 peace accord which ended the African continent's longest-running civil war, between north and south Sudan.

The Comprehensive Peace Agreement, or CPA, called for the general election and the referendum.