Sudan briefly detains opposition figure

October 13, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese security authorities on Thursday briefly detained the chairman of the mainstream opposition alliance, Faruq Abu Issa, accusing him of seeking foreign financial assistance for anti-government’s activities.

Agents of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) arrested Abu Issa on Thursday’s afternoon and took him to the premises of the NISS’s political security department in Khartoum where he was held for four hours.

Following his release in the evening, the opposition figure said he was not interrogated during his detention.

Abu Issa is the chairman of the National Consensus Forces (NCF), an umbrella group comprising main opposition parties.

In the same vein, the Sudanese Media Center (SMC), a website closely linked to the NISS, quoted an anonymous security source saying that Abu Issa was arrested because he asked the Netherlands’ Embassy in Khartoum to provide urgent fund for the opposition forces to help them in toppling the government.

According to SMC’s source, Abu Issa visited the Netherland’s embassy and informed it about the latest opposition’s steps towards overthrowing the government and mobilizing the public to take to the streets in protest against high prices.

“Abu Issa’s moves and wallowing in the arms of foreigners are well known,” the source added.

Meanwhile, the NCP’s leading member Rabi Abdel-Aatti described Abu Issa’s alleged act as representing “the highest degrees of mercenarism and collaboration with foreigners.”

“It is a moral abomination that totally cast him [Abu Issa] aside from national agendas,” Abdel-Aati added.

Meanwhile, a local anti-government group, the Sudanese movement for Change, has strongly denounced the arrest of Abu Issa, saying it just adds a new item to the long list of the regime’s failures.

In a press release it issued on Thursday, the group said that the authorities “frivolous” decision to arrest Abu Issa violates the basic freedoms enshrined in Sudan’s constitution and provides another proof that any dialogue with the current regime is futile.

(ST)