{"id":31170,"date":"2019-01-30T17:22:44","date_gmt":"2019-01-30T17:22:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31170"},"modified":"2019-01-30T17:22:44","modified_gmt":"2019-01-30T17:22:44","slug":"sudanese-agents-briefly-detain-opposition-leaders-daughter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=31170","title":{"rendered":"Sudanese agents briefly detain opposition leader’s daughter"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Security forces briefly detained the daughter of Sudanese opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, her family said, as authorities continue to press ahead with a crackdown on the weeklong protests.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two security vehicles belonging to the country’s powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) turned up at the residence of Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi on Wednesday, a day after the agency’s chief ordered<\/a> the release of all detainees held during recent demonstrations.<\/p>\n

“I now can confirm that my sister has been released. She had been taken to the headquarters of NISS for questioning,” her sister Rabah Sadiq al-Mahdi told AFP news agency.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mariam is deputy head of the opposition Umma Party headed by her father – who is Sudan’s last democratically elected prime minister and was overthrown by President Omar al-Bashir<\/a> in a coup in 1989.<\/p>\n

Late on Tuesday, 186 protesters were released from detention, hours after intelligence chief\u00a0Salah Ghosh “issued an order to release all detainees held in recent incidents.”<\/p>\n

Mariam has supported a wave of protests that have shaken cities across Sudan since December 19 when the government decided to the triple the price of bread.<\/span><\/p>\n

Demonstrations have since turned into a nationwide movement calling for Bashir’s removal. The 75-year-old leader however said the only way for him to step down is through the ballot box.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Rights groups say NISS arrested more than 1,000 people, including protesters, opposition leaders, activists and journalists, as part of its clampdown.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials say 30 people have died in violence during the protests, but human rights groups have put the death toll at more than 40.<\/span><\/p>\n

After nearly a year in exile, Sadiq Mahdi returned to Sudan on December 19, the same day as the wave of protests erupted against the government.<\/p>\n

“This regime has to go immediately,” Mahdi told hundreds of worshippers at a mosque in Omdurman at weekly prayers last Friday.<\/span><\/p>\n

Academics petition for ‘peaceful transfer of power’\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Separately, around 250 professors from the University of Khartoum protested on campus on Wednesday, demanding a new transitional administration to replace the current one.<\/p>\n

About 510 of the university’s professors signed a memo calling for the creation of a “sovereign body” to form a new government and oversee a four-year transitional period.<\/span><\/p>\n

The university educated many of Sudan’s leading politicians and has been the scene of protests and unrest throughout the country’s tempestuous history.<\/span><\/p>\n

“The University of Khartoum’s role as an academic institution is to find solutions for the peaceful transfer of power,” Montasser al-Tayeb, one of the professors, told reporters.<\/span><\/p>\n

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WATCH: Inside Story – Can Sudan’s protests succeed? (24:56)<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Security forces briefly detained the daughter of Sudanese opposition leader Sadiq al-Mahdi, her family said, as authorities continue to press ahead with a crackdown on the weeklong protests. Two security vehicles belonging to the country’s powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) turned up at the residence of Mariam Sadiq al-Mahdi on Wednesday, a day…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":31171,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31170","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\/31170","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=31170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31170\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/31171"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}