Sudan Protests III

Tuesday morning, protests started at Ahlia University in Omdurman, where protesters clashed with police and National Congress Party (NCP) students, who fired tear gas and assaulted unarmed protesters with weapons. The campus was evacuated. Update: At the Faculty of Agriculture in Shambat (Khartoum North) and Faculty of Education (Omdurman), two branches of University of Khartoum, protests broke out and faced similar treatment as students in Ahlia University. Some 24 students were reported arrested from Shambat and taken to a police station where they were released on bail later on. For the third time in two days, police raided and surrounded the female dorms in University of Khartoum. Tear gas was fired against the students.

Protests also broke out in Al-Kalakla Al-Gubba in Khartoum and Al-Kadaro Complex of Juba University in Khartoum North, as well as Atbara market, Shendi and Atbara. Update: During early evening, protests started in Omdurman Market. Police used tear gas and tried to disperse the protesters. Some were arrested.

Activists have reported unprecedented violence by the police. No deaths have been reported so far.

Media has been largely censured  and the dailies Al-Ahdath, Al-Watan and Al-Jarida were ordered by the NISS not to distribute their Sunday prints on Sunday without given a reason. Same thing happened yesterday. The weekly Al-Midan (a weekly by the opposition Sudanese Communist Party) has been ordered not to publish for a month. "They want to kick us out of the market. It is a bad thing for the freedom of expression in Sudan," Al-Jarida's editor-in-chief, Osman Shinger, told AFP.

But Sudanese students have not been beaten down by the censorship and took their protests against austerity, high costs of living and the end of the president Omar al-Bashir's reign online. News has been spread mainly on Twitter.

AFP bureau chief in Sudan, Simon Martelli was arrested this morning while covering the protests at Sudan University. This is what he wrote yesterday. Martelli, who is British, was brought to an unknown location. The embassy wasn't notified.

@girifna calls on all citizens of Sudan to take to the streets on June 30^th (the day that president Bashir took power 23 years ago) and celebrate the final anniversary of NCP's reign.

Update: The activists that were arrested at HAQ yesterday were released at 3 AM this morning.

The video shows today's protests at the South section of Sudan University. The riot police are waiting for the students to come out.

Follow #SudanRevolt on Twitter for updated information.

Read more about the situation:
- Al-Arabiya, Protesters, Sudan police clash over spending cuts
- Reuters, Protests erupt as Sudan's Bashir unveils austerity plan (updated version)
- Reuters, Sudan to tax more, cut subsidies to plug deficit
- Al-Jazeera [VIDEO], News - 3d day of protests in Khartoum, al-Arabi (in Arabic)
- Al-Jazeera, Students lead #SudanRevolts against austerity

- AhramOnline, Sudan protesters scuffle with police for third day: Witness

Sudan Protests II

Students at the University of Khartoum entered the second day of demonstrations, chanting "people want the regime down" and social media has run warm while waiting to see if this is "the real deal" or not. This is not the first time (and probably not the last) that students demonstrate against the government. Last December authorities closed down Khartoum University temporarily after more than a week of protests against the government.

The inflation in the country is currently running at 30 percent, but some economists claim it can be as high as 40, and the Sudanese people have been building up their anger against rising food prices and the government's plans to cut fuel subsidies.

President Omar Hassan al-Bashir addressed parliament around lunch, Monday, saying that the government had decided to "raise taxation and remove fuel subsidies "step by step." Furthermore, hundreds of federal and state positions will be axed and officials's salaries will be cut. Needless to say, people weren't too happy about the announcement. More on the announcement here.

Riot police has continued to fire tear gas and use batons against the protesters. There has been reports of both rubber bullets and live ammunition being fired, but the reports are yet unconfirmed. Students answered the brutality by throwing stones at the police and an unconfirmed number of protesters have been detained and taken away in trucks to police stations. Some claim they've been brought to torture chambers. As always with social media, it's difficult to know what's fact and what is rumors.

The security presence has been heavy all over the city centre and while the students at Khartoum University have had a hard time during the day (police has raided the female dorms at the campus) tweets now claim that Omdurman Ahliya University (link currently down) has joined the protests during the afternoon and that protesters are cutting off a road (video) near the Ministry of Defence.

Update: In early evening 30-40 youths have reportedly been beaten and arrested as they attended a meeting at the headquarters of New Democratic Forces Movement (HAQ) in Khartoum 2. The young activists, may of them Girifna members, were taken into trucks owned by the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) and there whereabouts are unknown at the moment. Tweeps are calling for lawyers to help out.

Twitter:

@girifna

@MimzicalMimz 

@S_Elwardany

@Shamarat

#السودان_ينتفض

Photo from Twitter.

Sudan Protests I

 

I'm currently preparing myself for another round of intense blogging. Here's why:

Small demonstrations have been going on in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, for well over a year now, but now it seems to get serious as a couple of hundered students at the University of Khartoum started a demonstration on campus against high food prices. The university's website seems to be down at the moment, not sure if that has anything to do with this though.

Riot police met the protesters with tear gas and batons and the demonstration spread to city central.

Tweets and Facebook statuses claim that the situation is escalating and that a number of seriously hurt people have been brought to hospital. People are encuraging each other to hit the streets and spread information.

Are you in Khartoum at the moment? Me and the rest of the world wants to hear your stories!

More to come.

Cairo Protests - Part III

January 25th, 2011: As police forces block the main streets leading to Tahrir Square (Midan Tahrir), demonstrators move to side streets where they're also met with force. In this video a group breaks through the barricade.

Cairo Protests - Part II

January 25th, 2011: Egged police forces and protesters clash in Tahrir Square (Midan Tahrir) in central Cairo on Tuesday.

Cairo Protests - Part I

January 25th, 2011: The first demonstrations begun. We live in central Cairo and it's been hard to avoid the riots. It feels surreal. We're in the middle of something huge; I'm actually witnessing a revolution that will be read of in the history books in the future.

Massive police forces gathered in Tahrir Square (Midan Tahrir) in central Cairo in the early afternoon on Tuesday and was egged into confrontation of thousands of Cairo demonstrators on the other side of the square. As I film the event, armoured trucks started to shoot with waterguns at the protesters.