EU calls for immediate release of Sudan’s detainees

Representatives of the Delegation of the European Union to Sudan and political counsellors of the EU member states met with officials of the National Umma Party (NUP) and lawyers of the defence team of Dr Amin Mekki Madani and Faroug Abu Eisa on Wednesday.

In a press statement on Saturday, the EU Delegation said they were briefed about the legal and political aspects of the judicial procedures against the political detainees and the NUP, as well as on the closure of a number of civil society organisations in Sudan.

Referring to the statements made a few weeks ago by the European Parliament and the office of the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, the members of the EU Delegation reiterated their commitment to the freedom of expression and political participation.

The EU embassies in Sudan also renewed their request to meet with Dr Madani, chairman of the civil Society Initiative, and Abu Eisa, head of the National Consensus Forces (a coalition of opposition parties) who were detained in Khartoum on 6 December last year after they had signed the Sudan Appeal, a political communiqué calling for regime-change and democracy, in Addis Ababa three days earlier, and Farah El Agar, legal consultant of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North), who attended the signing for the Sudan Revolutionary Front (an alliance of the main rebel movements).

The representatives of the EU demanded the immediate release of the political detainees, or a bringing them to a “fair trial without further delay”.