Aftermath of attack on Sudan’s PCP members

An attack on members of the Consultative Council of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) who were meeting at Cortoba Hall in El Sahafa district in Khartoum on Saturday injured 64 members of the Popular Congress Party, according to Idris Suleiman, political secretary of the party.

Suleiman said in a press statement on Sunday that the PCP the meeting was being held to discuss building a national consensus, as “all participate in building the state of democracy and the rule of law”, renouncing political exclusion and isolation.

The political secretary of the PCP, Idris Suleiman, said that those who attacked the meeting of the Consultative Council of the party at Cordoba Hall in Khartoum on Saturday “were a few young people who had been tricked.” In a later statement, Suleiman expressed concern about those involved in planning the attack. The matter is still being investigated.

The PCP was established by the late Dr Hasan El Turabi in 1999, after a split within the ruling National Congress Party, owing to differences between El Turabi and President Omar Al Bashir. El Turabi was leader of the Sudanese Islamic movement and the driving force behind the military coup of Omar Al Bashir in 1989. The party joined Al Bashir’s Government of National Accord in early 2017.

‘Detention’ of PCP members

Videos on social media showed Khartoum authorities taking PCP members to Kober prison in trucks, following the events that took place on Saturday afternoon. The PCP political secretary confirmed in a statement on Sunday that this was done for their protection. He thanked the authorities, which have since released all 143 members of the PCP who were detained.

Condemnations

The forces of Freedom and Change, the Transitional Military Council, and other political parties and forces condemned the attack in separate statements.

The Freedom and Change forces said that “although the PCP is responsible for a great deal of what has happened to Sudan in the past thirty years, any form of physical or verbal abuse will not establish a nation that abides by the Rule of Law”. They called for legal action and fair accountability as a means of redress and rejected all forms of violence and counter-violence.

The Sudanese Congress Party said this action “contradicts the glorious revolution, which was characterised as peaceful.”

Commentators on social media also denounced the attack, calling for peaceful change.