Sudanese rights defender resumes hunger strike over arbitrary arrest

January 3, 2017 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese rights defender Mudawi Ibrahim for the second time has gone on hunger strike on Thursday to protest his arbitrary detention, his family said on Friday.

During the last week of January Ibrahim stopped his hunger strik,e which he began on 22 January, upon the insistence of his family after fears for his deteriorating health. The 59-year -old activist suffers from a heart illness.

Adam was arrested on Wednesday 7 December at the Khartoum University, where he works as an engineering professor.

“We declare that Dr. Mudawi Ibrahim will go on an open-ended hunger strike until the authorities respond to this legitimate demands to put him on trial or release him promptly,” said a statement extended by his family to Sudan Tribune on Friday.

“We hold the security and state authorities responsible for any harm that befell him,” said the family and called on the civil society groups and political forces to pay particular attention to to advocate for his release.

Ibrahim is detained because of his efforts “for better future for the Sudanese people and the Sudan,” stressed the statement.

The family pointed that he had given the authorities until the first of February to put him on trial or to release him, adding that he resumed to strike because he sees it as the only weapon to protest his arbitrary detention.

Last December Amnesty International condemned Madawi’s arrest saying it “underscores the government’s desperate attempts to extinguish the last embers of dissent in the country”.

Ibrahim’s arrest came after the detention of over twenty political leader and activists last November. All of them have been released.

Also, His detention followed calls for general disobedience in the country to overthrow the government of President Omer al-Bashir. The virtual campaign for general strike had been launched through the social media by unidentified activists.

(ST)