Sudanese doctors strike over police brutality

Press, 2 April 1985, Page 10

Sudanese doctors strike over police brutality

NZPA Khartoum Security authorities in Sudan have arrested 17 people for alleged anti-Government activity as doctors continued a strike to protest against at what they see as police brutality in handling food riots. Troops continued to guard key installations although the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, was calm. Rises in the price of bread, fuel and other goods sparked off rioting last week. Thirteen students were arrested in a raid on a hideout on the campus of Khartoum University. Four other people had been detained. The hideout had been

used as a ‘headquarters for carrying out hostile actions and direct activity aimed at instigating people to create internal unrest,” an official statement said. Anti-Government leaflets and placards were also seized. About 400 doctors, who say they received eight bodies from the police on Wednesday and Thursday, have been on strike since Saturday. Western diplomats have described the conduct of the police and the Army during the riots as relatively moderate, given the scale of violence involved. The Government has so far only confirmed one death, that of a one-year-old

gin. The official statement from the Sudan news agency, S.U.N.A. described the 17 people arrested as communists and members of the socialist Ba’ath Party, saying they would be tried before a military court. S.U.N.A. quoted the secre-tary-general of the ruling Sudanese Socialist Union, Babkr Abdul-Rehim, as saying that they would be tried publicly before ‘revolutionary courts'. The doctors said they were planning to march to the republican palace with members of other professions to demand the removal of President Jaafar Nemery.