{"id":42004,"date":"2019-12-20T07:22:48","date_gmt":"2019-12-20T07:22:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42004"},"modified":"2019-12-20T07:22:48","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T07:22:48","slug":"libyan-intelligence-body-acknowledges-it-arrested-journalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=42004","title":{"rendered":"Libyan intelligence\u00a0body acknowledges it arrested journalist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nCAIRO: Amnesty International on Thursday urged Sudan\u2019s new transitional government to deliver on popular demands for sweeping change as the country marked the first anniversary of mass protests that led to the ouster of former president and longtime ruler Omar Bashir.<\/p>\n

\nA year ago, the first rally was held in Sudan to protest the soaring cost of bread, marking the beginning of a pro-democracy movement that convulsed the large African country. That led, in April, to the extraordinary toppling by the country\u2019s military of Bashir, and ultimately to the creation of a joint military-civilian Sovereign Council that has committed to rebuilding the country and promises elections in three years.<\/p>\n

\nTo mark the anniversary, activists have organized protests in cities across the country.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe transitional authorities must honor the commitments they made to restore the rule of law and protect human rights,\u201d Seif Magango, Amnesty\u2019s deputy director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes said in a statement. \u201cThe Sudanese people deserve nothing less.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe global rights group said Sudan\u2019s new government has shown positive signs of progress during its fragile transition to democracy, citing the repeal of a decades-old policing law and dissolution of the former ruling party \u2014 moves that have helped the Sovereign Council distance itself from Bashir\u2019s disgraced rule.<\/p>\n

\nOver the weekend, a court in Sudan convicted Bashir of money laundering and corruption, sentencing him to two years in a minimum security lockup.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe image of the former dictator in a defendant\u2019s cage \u201csent a strong message, on live TV for all of Sudan to see, that we are on the route toward justice,\u201d said Sarah Abdel-Jaleel, a spokeswoman for the protest organizers. But in the view of protesters, Abdel-Jaleel added, Bashir has not been held to account.<\/p>\n

\nThe deposed ruler is under indictment by the International Criminal Court on far more serious charges of war crimes and genocide linked to his brutal suppression of the insurgency in the western province of Darfur in the early 2000s. The military has refused to extradite him to stand trial in The Hague.<\/p>\n

\nAmnesty also called on the new government to hold security forces accountable for killing scores of people in their efforts to stifle protests against military rule, especially those behind a deadly crackdown on a huge sit-in outside the military headquarters in the capital, Khartoum, in June. Since last December, nearly 200 protesters have been killed.<\/p>\n

\nThe government recently appointed independent judges to oversee investigations into the killings, a major achievement for the protest movement. But even the most high-profile cases have shown no signs of official action, said Amnesty\u2019s Sudan researcher Ahmed Elzobier. Families still find it very difficult to bring cases against security officers, he added.<\/p>\n

\nSudan is under heavy international and regional pressure to reform. With the economy on the brink, the new government has made it a mission to get Sudan removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism so that it can attract badly needed foreign aid.<\/p>\n

\nMany pro-democracy protesters say the revolution remains unfinished. The poverty, high prices and resource shortages that catalyzed the original uprising continue to fuel frustration.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe\u2019re looking at a deep state that for thirty years has been plagued by corruption and economic crisis,\u201d said Abdel-Jaleel. \u201cBut if the nation is given an opportunity to achieve democracy and development and peace, that will be an achievement for the world, not just for Sudan.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CAIRO: Amnesty International on Thursday urged Sudan\u2019s new transitional government to deliver on popular demands for sweeping change as the country marked the first anniversary of mass protests that led to the ouster of former president and longtime ruler Omar Bashir. A year ago, the first rally was held in Sudan to protest the soaring…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":42005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-42004","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\/42004","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=42004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42004\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/42005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=42004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=42004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=42004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}