Sudan pursues crackdown on Islamist party

KHARTOUM, April 4 (AFP) — Sudanese authorities have pursued their crackdown against the party of dissident Islamist leader Hassan al-Turabi, who was arrested here last week, party officials said Sunday.

The security forces on Saturday arrested Faruq Abu al-Naja, a member of Turabi’s Popular Congress party, and arrested the four brothers of a wanted party member whom they want to pressure into turning himself in, they said.

Wisal al-Mahdi, a PC official who is also Turabi’s wife, and Awad Babikir, the director of Turabi’s office, alleged that security men planted weapons and explosives in Abu al-Naja’s empty house in Khartoum as a pretext to arrest him.

The officials added that security men also beat up and arrested four brothers of another PC activist, Awad Atta, after they failed to locate Atta and take him into custody.

Turabi, who was arrested last Wednesday, has been accused of “incitement to sedition, hatred of the state, sabotage and undermining the regime” and is to be tried before the state security court, the Sudan Media Center said.

Turabi, who was detained amid government allegations of a coup attempt by sympathisers of a rebellion by indigenous minorities in the western region of Darfur, had only been at liberty for six months since being freed last year from three years of house arrest.

A one-time mentor of President Omar al-Beshir, Turabi has been increasingly critical of the scorched-earth policy adopted by the government in Darfur.

The United Nations says at least 10,000 have been killed and hundreds of thousands people left homeless by clashes between the rebels and government-backed Arab militias in Darfur.

In an interview published by the London-based Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat on Saturday, Turabi blamed the Darfur fighting on the government’s neglect of the “population’s demands that pushed it into military action.”