Sudanese opposition leader calls for democratic moves

KHARTOUM, Nov 9 (AFP) — Islamist opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi is urging the government to allow the Sudanese to elect their leaders, protest freely and set up media outlets without a licence, a newspaper reported Sunday.

“Freedom has been guaranteed by Allah to the people who must be given the opportunity to freely elect their rulers,” the independent Akhbar Al Youm daily quoted Turabi, secretary general of the Popular Congress Party, as saying.

President Omar al-Beshir last month freed Turabi, a former ally turned rival, from more than two years of house arrest as part of a campaign to promote political reconciliation in the north and end 20 years of civil war with animists and Christians in the south.

Turabi, during a speech Saturday to student members of his party, urged the government to guarantee the freedom to demonstrate and establish newspapers without a licence and to set up private radio stations and satellite channels.

The PCP secretary general also called for lifting the state of emergency and cancelling the precautionary detention law under which Turabi was detained for more than two years.

He urged students to work for “grassroot reforms” in the country, recalling that it was they who “spearheaded” major historic popular upheavals in 1964 and 1985 that led to the ouster of the military regimes of General Ibrahim Abboud and Marshal Jaafer Nimeiri respectively.

Turabi said the leadership of the pro-government Sudanese students union was not elected by the students, implying that it was appointed by the government.

The leading Islamist was also quoted as having said that he opposed the “monopoly of money” by the state or capitalists.

“The Islamists have gripped power and distanced themselves from the community,” he said without elaborating.

Also attending the conference was Higher Education Minister Mubarak Mohamed Ali Majzoub, along with other officials and dignitaries.