Sudan security stops second politician at airport this week

For the third time this week a politician was prevented from travelling from Khartoum Airport, on Wednesday evening.

Yahya El Hussein, the head of the Arab Baath Socialist Party, was at the airport to fly to the United Arab Emirates for “a social visit”. “This is the second time I'm banned from travelling this year,” the party leader and lawyer told Radio Dabanga. The security officials did not give him a reason for the ban.

On Monday the National Umma Party vice-president, Dr Maryam El Sadig El Mahdi, was not allowed to fly from Khartoum to a conference of the Sudan Revolutionary Front in Paris. She was prevented from travelling again the next day.

El Hussein said that the prevention of his travel may have come because it coincided with the conference the SRF held in the French capital. “But I am not a participant of the conference.”

The Sudanese Democratic Coalition of Lawyers strongly condemned the travel ban the security authorities imposed against El Hussein without providing any reasons. “This is a blatant violation of human rights, the constitution, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights practiced by the National Intelligence and Security Service against a lawyer who is supposed to defend rights, freedoms and rule of law,” stated a press statement by the coalition yesterday.

“The ban on Yahya’s travel, in addition to what was mentioned, is arbitrary and a clear violation of Article 42 of the Constitution which guarantees the right of movement of citizens.”