KHARTOUM — Sudanese security forces on Sunday fired tear gas
at an anti-coup rally by teachers at the start of a two-day civil disobedience
call against last month’s military takeover.
اضافة اعلان
Dozens of teachers carried banners reading “no, no to military rule” and
demanded a transition to “full civilian rule” at a rally outside the education
ministry in the capital Khartoum.
Nationwide anti-coup protests — including by tens of thousands on October 30 —
have occurred since the October 25 coup but have been met by a deadly
crackdown. At least 14 demonstrators have been killed and about 300 wounded,
according to the independent Central Committee of Sudan’s Doctors.
“We organized a silent stand against the decisions by Burhan outside the
ministry of education,” said Mohamed Al-Amin, a geography teacher who took part
in that protest against the country’s top general, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
“Police later came and fired tear gas at us though we were simply standing on
the streets and carrying banners,” he said.
There were no confirmed reports of casualties but about 87 teachers have been
detained, according to the Sudanese Professionals Association, an umbrella of
unions which called for the Sunday-Monday civil disobedience.
The teachers’ rally came after the military leadership which carried out the
coup replaced heads of department at the education ministry, as part of
sweeping changes it made in multiple sectors.
“The protest rejects the return of remnants of the old regime” linked to ousted
president Omar al-Bashir, the teachers’ union said in a Facebook post.
Sunday’s rally followed calls for civil disobedience made by SPA, an umbrella
of unions which were instrumental in the 2018-2019 protests which led to the
ouster of longtime strongman Bashir in April 2019.
“The Sudanese people have rejected the military coup,” the SPA said on Twitter,
vowing “no negotiation, no partnership, no legitimacy”.
“We will start by barricading the main streets to prepare for the mass civil
disobedience on Sunday and Monday,” it said, urging protesters to avoid
confrontation with the security forces.
In the overnight darkness into Sunday protesters were seen piling up bricks and
large slabs to block streets in Khartoum and neighboring cities, according to
witnesses and AFP correspondents.
Text messages
The SPA circulated its latest appeals via text messages to bypass internet
outages since the putsch.
“Movement on the streets is less than usual but there is not full blockage of
streets or closure of shops” after the civil disobedience call, said a witness
from Omdurman who declined to give his name fearing reprisals.
On Sunday there appeared to be mixed compliance with the call among retailers.
Some shops were still open, but others were shuttered in Khartoum and its twin
cities of Omdurman and Khartoum-North, according to witnesses.
The latest resistance effort came almost two weeks after Burhan dissolved the
government as well as the ruling joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that
was supposed to lead the country toward full civilian rule.
Burhan also declared a state of emergency and detained Sudan’s civilian
leadership.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was briefly detained but later placed under
effective house arrest.
On Thursday, the military released four civilian members of his government.
Others are still held and, on that same day, security forces arrested other
civilian leaders near a United Nations building in Khartoum following their
meeting with UN Special Representative for Sudan Volker Perthes.
“We call upon the military leadership to cease arresting politicians and
activists and to stop committing human rights violations,” Perthes said in a
statement on Friday.
The military takeover sparked international condemnation, including punitive
aid cuts and demands for a swift return to civilian rule.
Burhan insists it “was not a coup” but a move to “rectify the course of the
transition.”
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