Sudan’s Republican Party to demonstrate in memory of its hanged leader

January 16, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – On the 31st anniversary of the hanging of its leader, the banned Republican Party plans to hold a peaceful demonstration calling for greater political freedoms and to abolish restrictive laws.

The small religious group which calls to review the Quran, Islam’s holy book, was banned by the Sudanese Political Parties Affairs Council (PPAC) in May 2014. The political parties body said that the Republican Party’s political ideology contradicts the constitutional provision that Sudanese law be based on Islamic legislation.

The party’s founder Mahmoud Mohamed Taha was hanged in a Khartoum prison for opposing application of the sharia- Islamic law -in Sudan by the former President Gaafar Nimeiry, on 19 January 1985.

Asma’ Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, a leading figure in the Party and daughter of its founder, Saturday said they will organize a number of activities to commemorate the anniversary of the execution of her father for heresy and opposing the sharia.

Among other activities, Taha announced they will hold a protest in front of the Ministry of Justice on Monday.

She has called upon political and rights groups to take part in the demonstration and to demand the abolishment of laws restricting freedoms.

“We urge the political and rights groups to call for the cancellation of freedom restricting laws and to stop manipulation of laws to fit distorted Islamic visions in order to humiliate political opponents,” she said.

“On the top of these laws come the Public Order Act and the National Security Act’’ she added.

Rights groups say the law on public morality is directed against women as the law enforcer, the police, is the judge, jury and executioner all at once.

The national security law gives the state security wide jurisdictions that include precautionary arrest for long periods.

The Party says will organize a number of functions about the current political state of affairs and ways of changing it. The occasions will be held at the venues of the Sudanese Congress Party and Ba’ath Arab Party.

(ST)