Sudan will emerge stronger from current crisis: al-Bashir says
February 16, 2019 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese President Omer al-Bashir Saturday said that the current crisis and difficulties in Sudan are hard tests from which the country will bounce back stronger.
Al-Bashir has been facing a wave of protests for the past two months, the longest and strongest since he took power 30 years ago. The protesters ask him to leave stressing democratic change cannot be implemented with his totalitarian Islamist regime.
“Power and rule have never been a goal but a means of building a society of religion, morality, science and knowledge, focusing on the spiritual side,” al-Bashir told a meeting of the Islamic Movement’s Shura Council held in Khartoum on Saturday.
He pointed out that the ‘Al-Inqaz’ regime sparked the education revolution to free minds and give more freedoms to liberate people from the constraints of sectarianism and tribalism.
“Those who are talking about freedoms are demonstrating against the government and organizing their press conferences freely,” he said.
The ICC indicted president has rejected public calls and private advices to step down and threatened that the continuation of protests will lead to a civil war in Sudan and destabilize the region.
During the past two months, Sudanese security forces systematically used tear gas and bullets to disperse peaceful protests saying there are illegal. Also, over 30 people have been killed and hundreds of activists and protester are jailed.
The opposition parties and civil society groups are only allowed to hold a meeting inside their premises as many of their leaders are under arrest or went underground.
For his part, Secretary-General of the Islamic Movement Zubair Ahmed al-Hassan, reiterated the movement’s steadfastness on the values of religion, “despite the efforts of the left and their allies” to destroy the religion and its values, as he said.
The Sudanese government used to designate the Sudanese Communist Party and holdout rebels as the main instigators of protests.
(ST)