{"id":29332,"date":"2019-01-16T00:24:37","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T00:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29332"},"modified":"2019-01-16T00:24:37","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T00:24:37","slug":"police-fire-tear-gas-to-disperse-protesters-in-khartoum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29332","title":{"rendered":"Police fire tear gas to disperse protesters in Khartoum"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nKHARTOUM: Crowds of people chanting \u201cPeace, justice, freedom\u201d returned to the street in the Sudanese capital on Tuesday as authorities deployed hundreds of police to disperse them, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

\nThey said police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters in Khartoum.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nDeadly protests have rocked Sudan since Dec. 19 when angry demonstrators rallied 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 in which demonstrators called on President Omar Bashir to step down.<\/p>\n

\nOn Tuesday, men and women gathered in the capital\u2019s southern business district of El-Kalakla, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

\nThey chanted \u201cPeace, freedom, justice\u201d and \u201cWe are fighters, we will achieve our mission.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nReinforcements joined riot police who had already deployed in the district and other areas of Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman after organizers called for anti-government rallies.<\/p>\n

\nThe Sudanese Professionals\u2019 Association (SPA) that is spearheading the rallies have urged protesters to continue with their near daily demonstrations this week, calling it as the \u201cWeek of Uprising.\u201d<\/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 in the past year, including 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

\nOnce seen as the breadbasket of the Arab world, the protesters say that many years of mismanagement have turned Sudan into a failed state.<\/p>\n

\nThey blame Bashir for South Sudan\u2019s secession and for Sudan being placed on a US list of countries that sponsor terrorism.<\/p>\n

\nThe opposition comprises several political parties whose leaders are in Sudan, and several armed groups led mainly from abroad or from conflict zones in southern or western Sudan.<\/p>\n

\nMembers of opposition parties have joined the protests, which are mainly led by the SPA. With a weekly program of demonstrations circulated on social media, the SPA has eclipsed the traditional opposition parties.<\/p>\n

\nBashir is the head of the Islamic Movement party, which has a similar ideology to the global Islamist organization, the Muslim Brotherhood.<\/p>\n

\nHe also has direct control over security forces, including the feared Rapid Support Force comprising former militias loyal to the ruling party, which he has often used to crush dissent.<\/p>\n

\nBut his position has been eroded by the economic crisis that sent inflation soaring to around 70 percent.<\/p>\n

\nBashir’s supporters fear the protests may embolden small but influential factions within the ruling party who oppose changing the constitution to allow the president to seek a new term in office in 2020.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KHARTOUM: Crowds of people chanting \u201cPeace, justice, freedom\u201d returned to the street in the Sudanese capital on Tuesday as authorities deployed hundreds of police to disperse them, witnesses said. They said police fired tear gas to disperse the protesters in Khartoum.\u00a0 Deadly protests have rocked Sudan since Dec. 19 when angry demonstrators rallied in towns…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29333,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29332","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\/29332","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=29332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}