‘Killing a student is killing a nation’: Sudanese universities revolt

Abd Raouf/AP/Press Association. All rights reserved.On 19 April 2016, 18-year old Sudanese student Abubakr Hassan Mohamed Taha was shot dead
on his university campus, because he wished to nominate himself for the student
union and marched with his colleagues to submit a list of nominees for election.

The
peaceful march was attacked by National Intelligence and Security Service
(NISS) agents, who fired live ammunition at random, killing Abubakr and injuring
27 other students according to Amnesty
International. Abubakr’s death sparked nationwide student protests against
the excessive use of force by the police and NISS and the shrinking space for
civic and political freedoms in the universities.

Seven Sudanese
public universities have witnessed waves of protests during the past week for
different reasons, ranging from deteriorated services, ethnic discrimination
and limitations on freedom of expression, to corruption and the oppressive
political environment.

For
instance, students
at Al Fashir University took to the streets to protest the administrative
referendum of Darfur on 11 April, the day of the polling. The referendum, which
is based on the Doha Document for Peace in Darfur, will decide whether Darfur
should be governed as one autonomous region or adhere to the current five-state
structure.

The process
is highly controversial because of ongoing hostilities in the region, which have
led to the displacement
of over 129,000 people in the past three months. Over two million people
have already been displaced from the region and cannot take part in the
referendum. Several
students were arrested; five of them are still in
detention without charge and were being transferred to Khartoum.

Students at the University
of Khartoum protested against conflicting news that government had decided
to sell the university buildings and turn them into touristic attractions.
Considering the Sudanese government’s record in dismantling public and
historical properties, the news was alarming to students and graduates of the
university, which was founded in 1902 – it is the oldest public university in
Sudan.

On 13 April, public speeches
against the sale of the university buildings turned violent after the police and
NISS raided the campus, using rubber bullets and tear gas extensively. Many students
were injured and admitted to hospital; over 60 students were detained without
charge, of which 30 were released on the same day, and 27 on 16 April.
Three students and two graduates remain in detention, and their families have
not been allowed to visit them or get information on their whereabouts. There
are concerns that they might be subjected to torture.

'Killing a student is killing a nation'

This old slogan is used in student
protests against outrageous and frequent killings; the first student felled in
peaceful protests was Ahmed
Al Qurashi, who was shot in the October 1964 uprising against General Aboud’s
military dictatorship.

'All we need is to let the world know that we exist and we resist.'

It is difficult to list all
the martyrs of the student movements since the Islamic Front military coup that
brought the Bashir regime into power. To name a few: Mohamed
Abdel Salam died in 1998 under torture, after participating in protests
demanding the distribution of mattresses to dormitory residents. Mutasim Hamid AbulGasim
was beaten and stabbed to death in the University of Gezira in 2008, after
participating in a public speech organised by the democratic front. Ali
Abbakar was killed in March 2014, when pro-government militias attacked the
University of Khartoum campus after a public speech on the humanitarian
situation in Darfur.

Even though criminal cases
were filed and investigation committees set up after these incidents, and
though their murderers are well known to other students, they were never
prosecuted for committing murder. On the contrary, they were promoted within
the ruling party structures.

Besides the excessive use of
force against peaceful protests on university campuses and arbitrary arrests
and detentions, student activists are targeted with murders and assassinations.
In December 2012, four
student activists were found dead in a canal in the University of Gezira,
after participating in protests and negotiations to exempt Darfuri students
from tuition fees, a right granted to them by DDPD but never enforced.

In February 2016 Salah
Gamar-Eldin was arrested by NISS from the University of El Geneina. A day
later his body was thrown in front of his family house with clear signs of
torture and ill treatment. He died a few hours later in hospital.

The crackdown on civil
society and the shrinking space for civil and political freedoms in Sudan have
made public universities the only available spaces to exercise the freedom of
expression and of peaceful assembly. Universities sparked the popular uprisings
in 1964 and 1985, which led to a change in the military dictatorships. As a
result, the current ruling regime has been very cautious to control students'
movements through arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture, and assassinations.

One of the students participating
in the current solidarity movement with students of the University of Kordofan
(who prefers to stay anonymous) said “we are longing for the popular uprising to
happen, as the oppression and economic deterioration cannot get worse. All we
need is to let the world know that we exist and we resist.”