Rioters sent to ‘ghost prisons’
(AFP, Herald Sun) The arrests came on yesterday’s anniversary of President Omar
al-Bashir’s coup. The information minister called the protesters “rioters” who
threaten the country’s stability. “Some were arrested and released,” said an
official from the Organisation for Defence of Rights and Freedoms. The group’s
figures indicate a dramatic rise in the number of arrests on Friday, the 14th day of
anti-regime demonstrations sparked by inflation. “The figure of those arrested
before yesterday (Friday) was about 1000 in the whole country,” said the official
who asked not to be identified because of the tense situation. Many are still being
held in prisons or “ghost houses,” the location of which is unknown, he alleged.
“They don’t tell you where they are. You are not even allowed to ask,” he said. One
of those detained was Sudanese journalist Talal Saad, who had taken some freelance
photos of the protests to the AFP bureau in Khartoum on Friday. Armed national
security agents raided the bureau, ordered AFP’s correspondent to delete the photos
and then detained Saad for almost 24 hours. Saad called AFP yesterday evening to
say he had been released and was fine. Police said “some of the rioters” were
arrested and would be brought to trial after “small groups” demonstrated in Khartoum
and elsewhere. Police contained the situation “with a minimum use of force,” they
said. The Organisation for Defence of Rights and Freedoms said “a few hundred”
people were injured during the Friday protests. Many elderly people were affected
by tear gas, but other injuries came from rubber bullets, tear gas canisters or
beatings, the rights group official said. Information Minister Ghazi Al-Sadiq
issued an appeal for people “not to allow the rioters to undermine security and
stability of the Sudan.” In one key disturbance, witnesses said police fired tear
gas and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of peaceful protesters who had gathered
in Hijra Square beside the mosque of the opposition Umma party in Khartoum’s twin
city of Omdurman.