Sudan’s Islamist opposition calls for release of detained members

Text of report by Sudanese independent newspaper Al-Ayyam, BBC Monitoring Middle East.

Sept 5, 2005 (Khartoum) — The [opposition] Popular [National] Congress [PNC] has called upon the Constitutional Court and the minister of justice, the general prosecutor to use their powers to intervene to protect the constitutional rights of the PNC and ensure the release of its members.

The PNC legal office representatives presented a petition to the minister of justice, the general prosecutor and the Constitutional Court calling on them to work towards improving the situation of their detainees.

Speaking to Al-Ayyam, secretary of the PNC legal office, Kamal Umar, said his party had presented to the general prosecutor a list of the names of the detainees “and demanded he implement the constitution”.

He further said the petition had pointed out that 18 of the detainees had been charged by the prosecutor “because they were denied the rights stipulated in the criminal procedures law because these are not included in the prosecutor’s mandate. He added that his party had addressed the constitutional court to protect the constitutional rights of the detainees who have been in detention for a long time”.

Umar further announced his party would be calling on the National Assembly considering it is the third power, to question the two ministers of justice and interior and the head of the security department.

The party would in also be calling on the UN delegation and international human rights organizations to protect the detainees’ rights. He added that the continued detention of its members indicated a complicated political situation, pointing out that three other members of the party had been arrested in the last two days.