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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Mon Jan 31 2011 - 08:21:20 EST
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/01/31/uk-sudan-protests-idUKTRE70U21620110131
Sudanese
student dies after protests - activists
By Opheera McDoom
KHARTOUM | Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:40am EST
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - A student in Sudan died from his injuries after being
beaten by security forces who broke up anti-government demonstrations
inspired by protests in neighbouring Egypt, activists said on Monday
(Reuters) - A student in Sudan died from his injuries after being beaten by
security forces who broke up anti-government demonstrations inspired by
protests in neighbouring Egypt, activists said on Monday.
It was the first reported death as protests continued late into Sunday
night, when students at Khartoum university were beaten and tear gassed in
their dormitories with at least five injured.
Police and security forces surrounded universities in Khartoum and other
cities on Monday, said witnesses.
"You are our martyr Mohamed Abdelrahman," activists wrote on the social
networking site Facebook, on a group called "Youth for Change" which has
more than 16,000 members and calls for an end to President Omar Hassan
all-Bashir's government.
Three activists told Reuters that Abdelrahman, a student from Omdurman
Ahaliya University, died in hospital from his injuries late last night and
had been buried. The university has been closed indefinitely.
"Medical sources confirmed to us that the student died yesterday from his
injuries inflicted by security forces," Yasir Arman, a senior official with
south Sudan's main party the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), told
Reuters.
Arman condemned the use of force and said the students were trying to hold
peaceful demonstrations.
UNIVERSITIES SURROUNDED
Protests have been held in Khartoum, el-Obeid town in the west and Kassala
in the east on Sunday, with hundreds of young people being beaten by police
with batons.
At least six universities in the capital and Sudan's regions were surrounded
on Monday by hundreds of heavily armed police, preventing students from
leaving the grounds.
Students demonstrating against rising food and petrol prices clashed with
police in north Sudan earlier in the month. The protests have broadened
since the uprisings in Tunisia <https://mail.google.com/places/tunisia> and
Egypt, with campaigners calling for regime change, and listing a range of
complaints ranging from corruption to the practice of sentencing women to be
lashed.
Police were not immediately available and the Omdurman hospital morgue
declined to comment on the death. On Sunday police spokesman Ahmed Tuhami
denied excessive force had been used.
On Monday journalists said security forces prevented the opposition Ajras
al-Huriya and the independent al-Sahafa newspapers from being distributed
after they wrote about the protests.
"Security came to the printing press and stopped the paper going out," said
Fayez al-Silaik, deputy editor of Ajras al- Huriya.
He said the paper has been targeted because it had a front page article on
the protests.
Dozens of students including two sons of opposition politician Mubarak
al-Fadil were arrested and many remain detained, activists and opposition
officials said on Monday.
Sudan has a close affinity with Egypt as the two nations were united under
British colonial rule. Protests in Cairo and other Egyptian cities have
sparked calls for change in Sudan, Africa's largest country, which is about
to split in two with the oil-producing south voting in a referendum for
independence.
Sudan is also deep in economic crisis after a bloated import bill has eaten
up foreign currency and forced an effective currency devaluation which
sparked rising inflation.
This month the government cut subsidies on petroleum products and key
commodity sugar, sparking smaller protests throughout the north.
(Editing by Giles Elgood)
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