Sudan Protests X

My apologies for missing a day of blogging.

Today, the Egyptian journalist Salma El-Wardany was deported from Sudan. On June 21 she was detained for covering the protests at University of Khartoum and was kept for seven hours. Her work permit was withdrawn. Today she was informed that she was allowed to stay in Sudan if she would refran from reporting anything about the ongoing protests in the country. She refused (that's called bravery!) and was therefor deported and put on a plane to Cairo.

Many photos that have circulated on Twitter and elsewhere have been proven to not display scenes from the ongoing protests, but from previous demonstrations. I have used some of these "not accurate" photos myself in this blog and should have researched it better before publishing it. However, I think it's important to remember that the photos does show Sudan, the people, authorities and what it's like to live there, so it hasn't been all meaningless to show them. In fact, I think it proves a very good point. No matter if the photo is from 2003, 2009 or yesterday, it basically shows the dissatisfaction of the people and the authorities unacceptable way of handling it. The "not SudanRevolts" photos can be found here.

NISS, the National Intelligence and Security Service, are notorious and there are almost as many horrible stories and rumors about them as there are victims. In the following days, I'll be working on a story about a man telling his experience when he was detained, harrassed and tortured. I'll publish it as soon as it's done. Another post will be the testimony of a human right's activist that's currently in hiding from NISS.

Meanwhile, Ali Mahmud al-Rasul Sudan's finance minister says the government is holding on to it's austerity measures "no matter what." The oil price has pretty much doubled since last week.

President Bashir has fired all of his nine political advicers and dismiss the protests as the work of "a few agitators."

Protesters are gathering their strenghts for what they hope will be a nation wide mass protest on June 29th, this Friday. Hopefully international media has opened it's eyes before then and can follow the fall of Bashir.

There's now a blog for #SudanRevolts. Don't miss it.

Update: I just read reports that @MimzicalMimz is being raided by NISS. Mimz is one of the leading Sudanese activists on Twitter and on ground. She was detained a few days ago and released. Here's her blog.

Update: @MimzicalMimz is now being taken from her home by NISS (11.30 PM, GMT +2. Some 9 hours ago she tweeted "In case anything happens to me since I was ordered by NISS to cut ties w/ @S_Elwardany I'm headed 2 aurport now in an attempt to say goodbye."