{"id":33784,"date":"2019-03-02T04:24:37","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T04:24:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33784"},"modified":"2019-03-02T04:24:37","modified_gmt":"2019-03-02T04:24:37","slug":"sudans-president-bashir-steps-down-as-ruling-party-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=33784","title":{"rendered":"Sudan’s President Bashir steps down as ruling party leader"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Sudan<\/a>‘s embattled President Omar al-Bashir<\/a> quit his position as chairman of the ruling party after more than two months of protests<\/a> against his nearly three-decade rule, the party said.<\/p>\n

According to a party statement released on Friday, al-Bashir delegated his powers as chairman of the National Congress Party to its deputy chairman, Ahmed Harun, until the party’s next general conference.<\/p>\n

No date has been set for the conference.<\/p>\n

Local media quoted Harun as saying al-Bashir took this step in order to “devote himself to the national tasks” as the country’s leader.<\/p>\n

Wanted for alleged war crimes\u00a0<\/h2>\n

Like al-Bashir, Harun is also wanted by the International Criminal Court<\/a> for alleged war crimes committed in Sudan’s Darfur region. He was appointed the party’s deputy chairman earlier this week.<\/p>\n

In late February, al-Bashir banned\u00a0<\/span>unauthorised public gatherings<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

On Thursday, an emergency court in the capital, Khartoum, sent eight people to prison over their participation in the anti-government protests that have engulfed Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman, the state-run news agency SUNA reported.<\/p>\n

Four were sentenced to five-year terms each and three got three-year sentences. One person was sentenced to six months.<\/p>\n

The same court also ordered the deportation of an Ethiopian national over the same charges.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sentences were the first handed down by the emergency courts in Khartoum set up earlier this week to investigate violations under the state of emergency that al-Bashir declared in late\u00a0<\/span>February to quash the protests.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Lawyers Alliance, which is part of an umbrella group spearheading the protests, said at least 870 protesters were brought before emergency courts in Khartoum and Omdurman on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Al-Bashir’s rule has been marred by civil wars and increasing street demonstrations. The latest wave of nationwide protests erupted in mid-December, initially triggered by rising prices and shortages but quickly turned to calls for al-Bashir, who seized power in a 1989 military coup, to step down.<\/p>\n

A heavy security crackdown has left scores of protesters dead.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sudan’s embattled President Omar al-Bashir quit his position as chairman of the ruling party after more than two months of protests against his nearly three-decade rule, the party said. According to a party statement released on Friday, al-Bashir delegated his powers as chairman of the National Congress Party to its deputy chairman, Ahmed Harun, until…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":33785,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33784","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\/33784","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=33784"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33784\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/33785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}