HARTOUM, Sudan – Agence France-Presse
Students clashed with police in Khartoum on Sunday as youths heeded calls to take to the streets for a day of anti-government protests despite a heavy security deployment in the capital.
At the Islamic University of Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city, around 1,000 demonstrators were confronted by riot police as they marched along the street shouting slogans criticizing the president, an AFP reporter saw.
“Ocampo, what you have said is right!” they chanted, in reference to the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who has accused President Omar al-Bashir of genocide and war crimes in Darfur.
Clashes broke out, with the protesters hurling rocks at the police, who retaliated with teargas and batons. Students belonging to the ruling National Congress Party joined the police in some of the clashes, a witness said.
In central Khartoum, near the presidential palace, hundreds of youths demonstrated, calling for regime change and defying police harassment. “We want change! No to the high price of goods!” one group chanted, before they were met by riot police, who chased the protesters, arresting at least five of them.
Nearby, at the medical faculty of Khartoum University, security officers initially prevented a large group of student demonstrators from leaving the campus. The students eventually forced their way out onto the street, shouting: “Revolution against dictatorship!”
But police and security officers attacked them with batons, arresting several more people and forcing the students back inside the university compound, which was then surrounded by eight police trucks.
At Ahlia University, also in Omdurman, another 500 students staged a protest, chanting similar slogans. The authorities imposed tight restrictions on journalists trying to cover the protests.
Soldiers detained an AFP cameraman for two hours, while around 10 journalists working for local and international media were stopped and ordered not to report on the demonstrations.
The protests were a response to calls posted on the Internet for peaceful anti-government rallies across Sudan to coincide with the announcement of preliminary results for the vote on southern independence.
They also come after a week of nationwide protests in neighboring Egypt that have shaken the regime of President Hosni Mubarak. “This peaceful procession is organized by the youth of Sudan,” Mubarak al-Fadl of the opposition Umma party told AFP. “What we have seen in Egypt has inspired the youth to move, and they have organized themselves through the Internet,” he said.