Sudanese Congress Party حزب المؤتمر السوداني | |
---|---|
Secretary-General | Khalid Omer Yousif |
Founded | 1986 [1] |
Ideology | Social democracy [1] |
Political position | Centre-left [1] |
Member of | National Consensus Forces [1] |
Website | |
sudancongress.com | |
The Sudanese Congress Party (SCP or SCoP) is a Sudanese centre-left, social democratic, pro-secular [2] political party created in 1986 as National Congress (unrelated to the National Congress Party) and renamed as the SCP in 2005. [1] [3]
Khalid Omer Yousif, former secretary-general of the Sudanese Congress Party (SCP), describes the origin of the SCP in terms of three events: the 1977 creation of the Congress of Independent Students (CIS) at Khartoum University by students opposed to president Gaafar Nimeiry; the creation in 1986, following the 1985 Sudanese Revolution, of the National Congress political party led by Molana Abdel Majid Imam (unrelated to the Islamist, pan-Arabist National Congress Party); and the renaming of the National Congress to the Sudanese Congress Party in a 2005 conference between National Congress and CIS members and graduates. [1]
The first head of the SCP was Abdel-Mageed Imam and the second was Ibrahim al-Sheikh. As of November 2016 [update] , Omer al-Digair had been "recently" elected as the third head of the SCP. [3] Abdelmonim Omar was Acting President of the SCP in early December 2012. [4]
On 6 July 2015, SCP party members Mastoor Ahmad Mohammed, Asim Omar Hassan and Ibrahim Mohammed Zain were flogged in Omdurman after being sentenced in the Omdurman Criminal Court for their campaigning for a boycoot of the April 2015 Sudanese general election. [1]
SCP chairman Ibrahim al-Shaikh Abdel Rahman as arrested on 8 June 2014 and detained for 100 days after he publicly criticised the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). [1]
NISS arrested SCP chair Omer al-Digair and seven other key SCP members on the night of 8/9 November 2016, after having arrested 13 other SCP members earlier, who remained in detention. The arrests were carried out in response to "protests and popular activities", according to the SCP.
In late November 2019, the RSF lodged a legal complaint against Hanadi El Siddig, editor-in-chief of the SCP's newspaper, Akhbar El Watan. El Siddig was charged under the Information Crimes Act for a column Without Borders that she wrote. SCP legal coordinator Kamal Mohamed El Amin described the complaint and charges as "tools of the former Al Bashir regime" used to oppose freedom of speech. [5]
In 2016, the SCP was described by Radio Dabanga as "one of the most active opposition parties in Sudan". [4] In December 2016, the SCP supported a 3-day civil disobedience action against economic austerity measures that caused "huge price hikes". [4]
The SCP is a member of the National Consensus Forces. [1]
The Justice and Equality Movement is an opposition group in Sudan founded by Khalil Ibrahim. Gibril Ibrahim has led the group since January 2012 after the death of Khalil, his brother, in December 2011. The JEM supported the removal of President of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir and nation-wide government reform.
The Sudanese Communist Party is a communist party in Sudan. Founded in 1946, it was a major force in Sudanese politics in the early post-independence years, and was one of the two most influential communist parties in the Arab world, the other being the Iraqi Communist Party.
The Central Bank of Sudan was the central bank of Sudan. The bank was formed in 1960, four years after Sudan's independence. It was located in the capital Khartoum. In April 2023, the Central Bank of Sudan was hit, and destroyed.
The 2011–2013 protests in Sudan began in January 2011 as part of the Arab Spring regional protest movement. Unlike in other Arab countries, popular uprisings in Sudan had succeeded in toppling the government prior to the Arab Spring in 1964 and 1985. Demonstrations in Sudan however were less common throughout the summer of 2011, during which South Sudan seceded from Sudan, but resumed in force later that year and again in June 2012, shortly after the government passed its much criticized austerity plan.
The Sudanese Revolution was a major shift of political power in Sudan that started with street protests throughout Sudan on 19 December 2018 and continued with sustained civil disobedience for about eight months, during which the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état deposed President Omar al-Bashir on 11 April after thirty years in power, 3 June Khartoum massacre took place under the leadership of the Transitional Military Council (TMC) that replaced al-Bashir, and in July and August 2019 the TMC and the Forces of Freedom and Change alliance (FFC) signed a Political Agreement and a Draft Constitutional Declaration legally defining a planned 39-month phase of transitional state institutions and procedures to return Sudan to a civilian democracy.
A coup d'état took place in Sudan in the late afternoon on 11 April 2019, when President Omar al-Bashir was overthrown by the Sudanese Armed Forces after popular protests demanded his departure. At that time, the army, led by Ahmed Awad Ibn Auf, toppled the government and National Legislature and declared a state of emergency in the country for a period of 3 months, followed by a transitional period of two years before an agreement was reached later.
The Khartoum massacre occurred on 3 June 2019, when the armed forces of the Sudanese Transitional Military Council, headed by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the immediate successor organisation to the Janjaweed militia, used heavy gunfire and tear gas to disperse a sit-in by protestors in Khartoum, killing over 100 people, with difficulties in estimating the actual numbers. At least forty of the bodies had been thrown in the River Nile. Hundreds of unarmed civilians were injured, hundreds of unarmed citizens were arrested, many families were terrorised in their home estates across Sudan, and the RSF raped more than 70 women and men. The Internet was almost completely blocked in Sudan in the days following the massacre, making it difficult to estimate the number of victims.
A series of political agreements among Sudanese political and military forces for a democratic transition in Sudan began in July 2019. Omar al-Bashir overthrew the democratically elected government of Sadiq al-Mahdi in 1989 and was himself overthrown in the 2019 Sudanese coup d'état, in which he was replaced by the Transitional Military Council (TMC) after months of sustained street protests. Following further protests and the 3 June Khartoum massacre, TMC and the Forces of Freedom and Change (FFC) alliance agreed on 5 July 2019 to a 39-month transition process to return to democracy, including the creation of executive, legislative and judicial institutions and procedures.
The Sudanese resistance committees or neighbourhood committees are informal, grassroots neighbourhood networks of Sudanese residents that started organising civil disobedience campaigns against the government of Omar al-Bashir in 2013 and became a major organised network playing a key role during the Sudanese Revolution.
The Transitional Sovereignty Council is the collective head of state of Sudan, formed on 20 August 2019, by the August 2019 Draft Constitutional Declaration. It was dissolved by Chairman Abdel Fattah al-Burhan in the October 2021 Sudanese coup d'état and reconstituted the following month with new membership, effectively changing it from a unity government to a military junta.
The Khartoum massacre investigation is an official investigation of the 3 June 2019 Khartoum massacre and other human rights violations of the Sudanese Revolution, mandated under Article 7.(16) of the Sudanese August 2019 Draft Constitutional Declaration, to cover "violations committed on 3 June 2019, and events and incidents where violations of the rights and dignity of civilian and military citizens were committed." The men-only investigation committee of the massacre, rapes and other human rights violations is headed by human rights lawyer Nabil Adib. The No to Oppression against Women Initiative protested against the men-only composition of the commission.
The 2019–2022 Sudanese protests were street protests in Sudan which began in mid-September 2019, during Sudan's transition to democracy, about issues which included the nomination of a new Chief Justice and Attorney General, the killing of civilians by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), the toxic effects of cyanide and mercury from gold mining in Northern state and South Kordofan, opposition to a state governor in el-Gadarif and to show trials of Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) coordinators, and advocating the dismissal of previous-government officials in Red Sea, White Nile, and South Darfur. The protests follow the Sudanese Revolution's street protests and civil disobedience of the early September 2019 transfer of executive power to the country's Sovereignty Council, civilian prime minister Abdalla Hamdok, and his cabinet of ministers. Hamdok described the 39-month transition period as defined by the aims of the revolution.
On 25 October 2021, the Sudanese military, led by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, took control of the Government of Sudan in a military coup. At least five senior government figures were initially detained. Civilian Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok refused to declare support for the coup and on 25 October called for popular resistance; he was confined to house arrest on 26 October. Internet outages were reported. Later the same day, the Sovereignty Council was dissolved, a state of emergency was put in place, and a majority of the Hamdok Cabinet and a number of pro-government supporters were arrested. As of 5 November 2021, the list of those detained included "government ministers, members of political parties, lawyers, civil society activists, journalists, human rights defenders, and protest leaders", who were held in secret locations, without access to their families or lawyers.
The following lists events during 2023 in the Republic of the Sudan.
A civil war between two rival factions of the military government of Sudan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) under Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) under the Janjaweed leader, Hemedti, began during Ramadan on 15 April 2023. Fighting has been concentrated around the capital city of Khartoum and the Darfur region. As of 21 January 2024, at least 13,000–15,000 people had been killed and 33,000 others were injured. As of 21 March, over 6.5 million were internally displaced and more than two million others had fled the country as refugees, and many civilians in Darfur have been reported dead as part of the 2023 Masalit massacres.
The battle of Khartoum is an ongoing battle for control of Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, with fighting in and around the city between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), and the Sudanese Armed Forces. The battle began on 15 April 2023, after the RSF captured Khartoum International Airport, several military bases, and the presidential palace, starting an escalating series of clashes.
The following is a timeline of the War in Sudan in 2023.
The war in Sudan, which started on 15 April 2023, has seen a widespread of war crimes committed by both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), with the RSF being singled out by the Human Rights Watch, and the United Kingdom and United States governments for committing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.
The following lists events during 2024 in the Republic of the Sudan.
The following is a timeline of the War in Sudan (2023–present) in 2024.