January 5, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The director-general of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS), Mohamed Atta, has claimed that there is no more than nine political detainees in the country, including two from a key opposition party and a handful of student activists.

According to Atta, who was speaking in an interview published by the privately-owned daily newspaper Al-Ahdath on Sunday, the most high profile of those detained are Ibrahim Al-Sanousi, the 70-year-old assistant secretary general of the Islamist opposition Popular Congress Party (PCP) of Hassan Al-Turabi, and the PCP’s secretary of industry, Ali Shamar.

Al-Sanousi was taken into custody on 19 December last year upon his return from a trip to Kenya and neighboring South Sudan. Fellow party members who tried to organize an event calling for his release on 22 December in Gederif State were also arrested.

Opposition sources indicated at the time that Al-Sanousi’s arrest may have something to do with suspicions by the authorities that the PCP is coordinating with Kauda Alliances or the Sudanese Revolutionary Forces (SRF), a clutch of armed rebel groups seeking to overthrow the government.

Khartoum accuses the SRF of being supported by South Sudan which seceded from Sudan in July last year.

Atta said that the country’s security apparatus are closely monitoring the movement of opposition parties, accusing them of receiving fund from abroad.

He further claimed that political parties in Sudan enjoy a reasonable amount of freedoms, and are allowed to hold activities in cultural centers without hindrance from security authorities.

Beside the PCP’s detainees, Atta said that there are a number of activists detained on the grounds of inciting recent students’ protests.

Sudanese authorities used excessive force to stamp out a number of student protests that erupted in mid-December last year. The protests eventually led the authorities to suspend study at the University of Khartoum.

Atta’s claim that the NISS has only nine detainees is challenged by reports from rights and activist groups.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a press release this month that more than 250 people were arrested by Sudanese security forces at demonstration, news conferences, political party meetings, and private homes between September and December 2011.

The prominent anti-government group, Girifna, says five of its members, including the group’s founder Nagi Musa, have been detained since 25 January after the group organized a symposium on the situation of human rights in eastern Sudan.

The same group reported that more than ten activists were arrested in eastern Sudan’s coastal city of Port Sudan after they held a sit-in calling for justice to be served against the perpetrators of the 2005 crackdown that killed more than 25 protestors in the city.

(ST)