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TITLE: Sudan Security Arrests 20 People |
AUTHOR: Mohamed Osman |
PUB: Associated Press |
DATE: February 24, 2001 |
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KHARTOUM, Sudan (AP) - A day after arresting Sudan's top Islamic theologian and former parliament speaker Hassan Turabi, security forces on Thursday shut down his opposition party's newspaper and jailed at least 20 supporters, a Turabi aide said. Retired army Gen. Mohammed Amin al-Khalifa, himself in hiding, told The Associated Press that Turabi had been transferred to the maximum security Kober prison, east of Khartoum. Security forces took Turabi from his home for questioning about accusations that he was conspiring with southern rebels to topple President Omar el-Bashir's government, al-Khalifa said. A government statement said Turabi's agreement with the Christian rebels of the Sudan People's Liberation Army was tantamount to a plan to topple the government by force, "by spreading chaos, bloodletting and the abuse of honor and properties.'' Turabi _ who is believed to be in his 70s _ called Tuesday for the Sudanese to rise against el-Bashir's government. The opposition leader also announced that he was in contact with the U.S. government and had reached an understanding with rebels fighting since 1983 for independence or greater autonomy in the largely Christian and animist south. In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher called on Sudan to respect Turabi's rights. "Certainly, we would urge the Sudanese government to respect his civil rights and to observe due process of law,'' Boucher said. Al-Khalifa, who spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location, said security forces had rounded up at least 20 members of Turabi's opposition Popular National Congress party in different parts of Sudan. The government has allowed no contact with Turabi or the others jailed, he said. Security forces in Khartoum besieged party headquarters and the printing house of the party newspaper, Rai al-Sha'ab, "People's View,'' al-Khalifa said. The government "advocates a military solution,'' al-Khalifa said, "and we are of the view that political differences cannot be solved through the barrel of the gun.'' Once Sudan's chief Islamic theologian, Turabi is considered the father of the country's hard-line Islamic movement. He had been widely seen as the real power behind el-Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup. The two men fell out in late 1999, with el-Bashir saying his longtime ally was trying to undermine his authority. El-Bashir dissolved Parliament - unseating Turabi - and imposed a state of emergency, prompting Turabi's shift to the opposition. Turabi's agreement with the Christian rebels marked a dramatic new approach on the part of the former Khartoum University law professor, who had for years advocated hard-line positions against the rebellion. He told reporters Tuesday that the agreement - signed in Geneva - fell short of military cooperation, instead focusing on "scrapping all the laws that cripple freedoms, lifting the state of emergency, releasing of all political detainees and standing together with other political parties in the face of oppression and violation of human rights.'' One of the rebels' main demands is an end to Islamic law, first imposed in Sudan in 1983. END |