{"id":29164,"date":"2019-01-14T23:24:13","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T23:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29164"},"modified":"2019-01-14T23:24:13","modified_gmt":"2019-01-14T23:24:13","slug":"sudan-protests-will-not-change-government-bashir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29164","title":{"rendered":"Sudan protests will not change government: Bashir"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nKHARTOUM:\u00a0Defiant Sudanese President Omar Bashir said on Monday that ongoing protests will not lead to a change in government, as he addressed a rally of cheering supporters in war-torn Darfur.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cDemonstrations will not change the government,\u201d Bashir told crowds of supporters gathered in Niyala, the capital of South Darfur state, where just a day ago police had broken up an anti-government demonstration, state television reported.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThere\u2019s only one road to power and that is through the ballot box. The Sudanese people will decide in 2020 who will govern them,\u201d said Bashir, who is planning to run for the presidency for the third time in elections to be held next year.<\/p>\n

\nDeadly protests have rocked Sudan since Dec. 19 when angry crowds took to the streets in towns and villages against a government decision to raise the price of bread.<\/p>\n

\nAt least 24 people have died in the protests, which swiftly turned into nationwide anti-government rallies, with protesters calling on Bashir to step down.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cSudan has many enemies and those enemies have few people among us who don\u2019t want stability and security,\u201d said Bashir, with state television broadcasting footage showing him waving his trademark cane as supporters chanted \u201cstay, stay.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe will not allow anyone to destroy our homeland by looting and burning our properties,\u201d said Bashir.<\/p>\n

\nIn the initial days of protests, several buildings and offices of Bashir\u2019s ruling National Congress Party were set on fire in towns and villages. On Sunday, the first anti-government demonstrations were held in Niyala and El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur.<\/p>\n

\nDarfur, a region the size of France, has been torn by violence since 2003 when ethnic minority rebels took up arms against the government in Khartoum, accusing it of economic and political marginalization.<\/p>\n

\nAbout 300,000 people have been killed in the conflict and another 2.5 million displaced, according to the UN. Most of those displaced still live in sprawling camps.<\/p>\n

\nOn Monday, he reiterated that Sudan faced \u201ceconomic problems,\u201d but they could not be solved by looting and burning of properties.<\/p>\n

\nSudanese security agents, meanwhile, stopped a group of journalists in Khartoum from holding a sit in to protest the banning of a newspaper this week, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

\nThe journalists were planning a sit in after authorities banned Al-Jadida newspaper from publishing for several days this week, a witness told AFP without offering details.<\/p>\n

\nOrganizers of anti-government protests have so far staged hundreds of rallies across the country, including in Khartoum.<\/p>\n

\nThe Sudanese Professionals\u2019 Association that is spearheading the rallies have urged protesters to continue with their demonstrations this week, calling it as the \u201cWeek of Uprising.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nOn Sunday, protesters had taken to the streets in the capital\u2019s Bahari district chanting \u201cpeace, peace\u201d and \u201crevolution is the people\u2019s choice,\u201d but they were quickly confronted by riot police with tear gas.<\/p>\n

\nRights groups say more than 1,000 people have been arrested since the protests began, including opposition leaders, activists and journalists as well as demonstrators.<\/p>\n

\nAlthough the unrest was triggered by the rise in the price of bread, Sudan has faced a mounting economic crisis over the past year, led by an acute shortage of foreign currency.<\/p>\n

\nRepeated shortages of food and fuel have been reported across cities, while the cost of food and medicine has more than doubled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KHARTOUM:\u00a0Defiant Sudanese President Omar Bashir said on Monday that ongoing protests will not lead to a change in government, as he addressed a rally of cheering supporters in war-torn Darfur. \u201cDemonstrations will not change the government,\u201d Bashir told crowds of supporters gathered in Niyala, the capital of South Darfur state, where just a day ago…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29164"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29164\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}