Sudanese opposition party urges Bashir not to sign army law
July 15, 2013 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) has demanded that president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir not to sign the controversial army law recently approved, appealing him to return it to the parliament.
Earlier this month, the Sudanese parliament passed controversial amendments to the 2007 Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) law which allows for prosecution of civilians in military courts.
These amendments allow military courts to prosecute civilians on several crimes including deserting military service, harbouring a fugitive, disclosing military information, using military uniforms, undermining the constitutional order, inciting war against the state, dealing with an enemy state, spying on the state and allowing escape of prisoners of war among others.
The PCP secretary for justice and human rights, Abdallah Al-Hussein, in a press statement yesterday called upon Bashir not to keep the law at his office for more than 60 days to avoid its tacit approval and return it immediately to the parliament.
He saw that the law opens the door for exercising selective justice which had been adopted by some regimes in the past.
Al-Hussein also expressed concern that the army law would allow international justice and human rights institutions to interfere in Sudan’s internal affairs under the pretext that the country’s own judiciary is not qualified for the job.
In a separate issue, the PCP’s political secretary, Kamal Omer, has described statements made by the head of the parliamentary sub-committee on foreign affairs, security, and defense, Mohamed al-Hassan Al-Amin, on a possible convergence between the ruling National Congress Party (NCP) and the PCP as “ravings”.
“Differences among Islamists were on democracy and freedom”, said Omer.
On Sunday, Al-Amin, said that rapprochement between the two Islamists parties, NCP and the PCP, in the future is not unlikely, pointing that they share the same ideology.
He stressed that the main differences between the two parties were on strategy not the fundamental orientation.
The PCP split from the NCP following 1999’s bitter power struggle between president Omer Hassan Al-Bashir and the Islamist leader Hassan Al-Turabi. The latter was ousted from his post as parliament speaker.
Al-Turabi afterwards established the PCP and has since been a vociferous critic of the very regime whose army-backed seizure of power in 1989 he orchestrated.
(ST)