Al-Turabi’s family decries his “worst detention ever”
January 27, 2011 (NAIROBI) – The family of the detained Islamist opposition leader Hassan Al-Turabi has protested against what it termed as his “worst detention experience ever”, saying that that 78-year old dissident is denied medical checkup and subjected to daily inspection.
The leader of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) was rounded up along with a number of his aides by heavily armed members of Sudan security forces in the early hours of Tuesday, January 18, less than one day after an interview in which he warned the government of public uprising if it failed to share power was published by AFP.
His arrest comes at a politically sensitive time as the government feels increasingly vulnerable in the face of opposition’s threats to stage street protests against the background of the near-certain secession of the oil-producing south Sudan and rising food prices aggravated by an acute shortage of foreign currency reserves.
The government accused Al-Turabi of planning to disrupt security and carry out “assassination and sabotage” to topple the government, according to Nafi Ali Nafi, a senior official of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP).
According to the family statement, Al-Turabi’s captors had refused to allow his personal doctor to examine him and banned him from using pens and papers.
Even the permitted weekly visitation by five of his family members is done in the presence of security agents, the family’s statement said, demanding an investigation into the conditions of his detention.
Al-Turabi’s family claimed that his current detention experience was his worst since his history with political detentions started during the reign of former Sudanese president Jafar Nimairy in 1964.
Al-Turabi rode the crest of the National Islamic Front (NIF) to mastermind the 1989’s coup that brought president Al-Bashir to power, but he was ousted from leadership following the 1999’s schism in the NIF government between supporters of Al-Turabi on one side and supporters of Al-Bashir and Vice-President Ali Osman Mohamed Taha on the other.
Ever since that point Al-Turabi has been in and out of detention and a vocal critic of the government. He was last arrested for calling on president Al-Bashir to surrender to the ICC which is seeking his arrest on charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide allegedly committed in Darfur region.
(ST)