Sudan.. The release of leaders from the “Removal of Empowerment” committee and the Forces for Freedom and Change | Politics news

On Wednesday, the Sudanese authorities released all the leaders of the Forces of Freedom and Change coalition and the Empowerment Removal Committee, most notably Wagdi Saleh, Babiker Faisal and Taha Othman.

Lawyer Azhari al-Hajj, defense attorney for the former member of the ruling Sovereign Council, Muhammad al-Faki, said that his client and other leaders of the Forces of Freedom and Change who were arrested in recent weeks have been released.

Al-Faki was released more than two months after his arrest on February 13.

These leaders were released the day after the release of Khaled Omar Youssef, their companion in the “Forces of Freedom and Change” and the former Minister of Cabinet Affairs.

Al-Faki and Youssef were members of the “Removal of Empowerment” committee tasked with recovering the assets seized by the regime of President Omar al-Bashir. The committee has recently become a target of the military authorities, who are accused by supporters of civilian rule of seeking to re-establish the security and political apparatus of the former regime.

The United Nations special envoy to Sudan, Volker Peretz, welcomed in a tweet on Twitter the release of these leaders, considering that their release took place after the responsible judge considered that there was no need to detain them.

In early April, the head of the Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, promised to release political detainees in preparation for a dialogue between the various Sudanese parties. He also pledged to ease the emergency measures established after the coup.

Since October 25, 2021, Sudan has witnessed a political crisis and protests rejecting exceptional measures taken by Al-Burhan, most notably the imposition of a state of emergency and the dissolution of the Sovereignty Councils and the Transitional Ministers, which political forces consider a military coup, in exchange for the army’s denial.​

Al-Burhan’s decisions ended a fragile power-sharing agreement between the military and civilians that the two sides reached after the army ousted President Omar al-Bashir in 2019 following popular protests against his three-decade rule.

Since that time, thousands of Sudanese have demonstrated repeatedly throughout the country, leaving 94 protesters dead at the hands of the security forces, according to the Sudan Doctors Committee.