NOTE: Turabi is not from Christian/animist South Sudan. He is an Islamist leader from the North and has been associated with Darfurian rebels.
Sudanese security forces arrested opposition leader Hassan al-Turabi and eight other party officials today after they called for a “popular revolution” if Khartoum did not reverse price rises.
Turabi’s arrest comes at a politically sensitive time for President Omar al-Bashir, who stands to lose control over the oil-producing south after it voted in an independence referendum last week.
It also comes as Tunisia grapples with the fallout from the ousting of its long-time president Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, who fled the country on Friday after three weeks of violent unrest sparked by social grievances.
Sudan’s opposition threatened on Sunday to take to the streets if the government did not remove its finance minister and dismantle parliament over the decision to raise prices on a range of goods.
“This is criminal – how can they arrest a man who is 78 years old and put him in prison? We are scared for him,” Turabi’s tearful wife, Wisal al-Mahdi, said.
Ben Ali’s overthrow in Tunisia has reverberated across the Arab world, raising concerns about stability in other countries in the region experiencing similar social, economic and political problems.
Sudan’s price increases have triggered student protests in the country’s northern agricultural heartland and Khartoum. The country is struggling to cope with a current account deficit and a currency devaluation that is driving up inflation.
This month Khartoum cut subsidies on petroleum products and key commodity sugar, prompting protests over the past week, quelled only by baton-wielding police firing teargas.
Read the full story at the Guardian.