Published: October 30, 2021
Members of Yellowknife’s Sudanese community say they are joining many thousands of people in Sudan’s streets in resisting the military takeover staged in the past week.
After more than three decades of dictatorship and military-backed rule, Sudan had been on the verge of transitioning to a democratically elected civilian government.
However, a general named Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military coup on Monday, seizing control of the country and arresting senior politicians including Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok.
On Saturday, several dozen Yellowknife residents with connections to Sudan staged a protest in the city’s Somba K’e Park condemning the coup. Yellowknife’s Sudanese community wants Canada to vocally “stand against these brutal forces and support Sudan’s revolution to civilian rule,” a news release from the protesters stated.
Political unrest in Sudan has been taking place for decades. For 30 years, the country was led by the dictator Omar al-Bashir, who overthrew the democratically elected government of Sadiq al-Mahdi in 1989.
Magdi Hassan, who has lived in Yellowknife for the past six months, was arrested and tortured by al-Bashir’s government in the late 1990s while president of the students’ union at Ahlia University in the country’s largest city, Omdurman.
A US Department of State report compiled in early 1998 details the regime’s treatment of Hassan.
“Armed security personnel with handheld radios detained Ahlia University student, Magdi Abdelmoniem Hassan, chairman of the student union of the university. They took him to two locations where they severely beat him. Photographs show weals on his back and his medical report also indicated a ruptured ear drum,” the report states.
Hassan says the damage to his ear was permanent.
“I was arrested, like, seven times,” he told Cabin Radio after addressing the crowd at Somba K’e Park.
“The last time I was arrested, I had a tough time. I was beaten from the afternoon till night. I passed out.”
Hassan came to Canada as a political refugee in 1998. He now wants his adopted country’s government to speak out forcefully against the revival of military rule in Sudan.
“We need to send a message to all the world: people in my country are struggling to survive right now,” he said.
“There are millions of people on the street, refusing to accept the military government. We are here to say we support them: you are not alone, we are going to fight with you, and we’re pushing our government in Canada to take strong action.”
Earlier this week, Canada signed a European Union and United Nations statement to “strongly condemn the ongoing military takeover in Sudan.”
The statement called for a return to the transitional arrangement that had, since al-Bashir’s removal from power in 2019, seen military and civilian leaders share power and move slowly toward the eventual election of a civilian government.
“Any attempts by the military to unilaterally modify these provisions and upend the critical civilian-military partnership are unacceptable,” the statement read.
“The actions of the security forces deeply jeopardize Sudan’s hard-won political, economic, and legal gains made over the past two years and put Sudan’s security, stability, and reintegration into the international community at risk.”
Internet access cut
On the ground, that statement appears to have made little difference.
General al-Burhan claims he led the coup to prevent “civil war,” alleging civilian leaders had been inciting violence against security forces.
On Saturday, thousands of protesters took to Sudan’s streets and demanded the reinstatement of Prime Minister Hamdok. In Omdurman, the city where Hassan once led a students’ union, three people were reportedly shot and killed by military forces.
Internet access in Sudan is currently almost non-existent and many phone lines have also been cut. Gen al-Burhan earlier said the internet would only be restored “in phases if we feel that the media is telling the truth,” the BBC reported.
“They are being silenced but I can hear them,” said Amna Idris, a Yellowknife 15-year-old who left Sudan when she was two, referring to protesters in the country where she was born.
“No matter what side of the world I’m on, if I was there with them, I’d be protesting the same way I am here.”
Salah Mohammed. Ollie Williams/Cabin RadioIdris said she feared for the safety of her relatives and friends in Sudan.
“Since they don’t have wi-fi they can’t communicate anything to us. It’s very difficult being in the darkness that way,” she told Cabin Radio.
Salah Mohammed, who moved to Canada in 1967 but spent time in Sudan during a previous uprising, said the forces that divided the country during the civil war that created South Sudan were emerging again.
“They displaced millions of people. We lost a third of the whole country,” said Mohammed, a Yellowknife resident for the past six years. “And then they came back to the north with the same iron fist: repression, killing, displacing.
“We are born free. We have to live free in the context of the law – not the law of the AK-47 or whatever tanks, it doesn’t work.
“I wish the free world and Prime Minister of Canada would condemn what is happening in Sudan with very strong language. There is no in-between here.”
About 150 people took part in the event in Ottawa to protest the military coup that took place in Sudan last Monday. It was one of many such demonstrations internationally on Saturday.
Author of the article: Bruce Deachman
Publishing date:Oct 31, 2021 •
Article content
Shouting chants of “For justice for peace, for all Sudanese,” waving Sudan’s red, white, black and green flags and carrying placards that read “Someone is dying now for democracy in Sudan,” “Stop killing our people” and “#iamthesudaneserevolution,” about 150 people took part in a march in Ottawa on Saturday to protest the military coup that took place in that country last Monday.
That overthrow, in which General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan ousted North African country’s civilian leader, Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, was followed by demonstrations in Sudan that, leading into Saturday, had left at least 11 people dead and many more injured. On Tuesday, al-Burhan promised to hold an election, but not until July 2023.
Saturday’s demonstration, with participants marching from outside Global Affairs Canada’s offices on Sussex Drive to the Sudanese embassy on Stewart Street in Sandy Hill, coincided with other “march of millions” demonstrations around the globe, including in Khartoum and other cities in Sudan, where protestors took to the streets to demand a return to civilian rule.
“We want a civilian government,” said Reem Abbas, one of the organizers of Saturday’s march in Ottawa. “We are against the military coup and do not want any kind of military rule, whether it’s by al-Burhan or Hemedti (Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, leader of Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces paramilitary) or any military representative.
“We are calling for the immediate release of all the detained activists and (government) minister, and the end to the killing and torture of the Sudanese public.”
With the Internet and other communications in Sudan now either shut down or unreliable, Abbas counts on outsiders and the odd happenstance of an occasional 30-second phone call, after which the line goes dead, to find out how her family members in Khartoum — her father, sister, grandmother, aunts, uncles and cousins — are doing.
And, as sporadic and brief as those calls are, she says she doesn’t want longer chats; she worries that Sudan military officials could be listening and might retaliate if any personal information is revealed.
“It’s been very difficult,” she says. “We’re trying to get them not to say anything because they are being watched and we fear for their safety.
“But I just want to hear their voices and make sure they’re alive, and we’ll take care of everything else.”
Other participants described similar experiences and concerns.
“All my family, all my extended family, live there,” said Fahima Hashim, president of the Sudanese-Canadian Association of Ottawa. “And I haven’t been in touch with them. And, on the street where we live, three people were killed today, around 9 a.m. Ottawa time.
“So we are here to say that we condemn the coup, and we are calling for the return of the civilian government and democracy to be maintained. And we’re not accepting that the military be a part of it.”
Hashim added that the coup had worsened the already tenuous economic situation in Sudan, with the United States, World Bank and others suspending financial aid to the country as a result of the military action.
“The support we got from the international community to uplift the economic crisis in Sudan has all gone. Everything has stopped, and now we have to start again, from the beginning.”
Hanan el-Hassan took part in Saturday’s march in part to convince the Canadian government to put pressure on Sudan’s military to reinstate Hamdok, the prime minister. “All the people there support him,” she said.
Mandela Abdalla, meanwhile, said he was marching to protest the violence, corrupt politicians and police brutality in Sudan and was also concerned about family members of his in Khartoum. “I know how corrupt the military is there. They cut down the Internet and it’s possible they could be listening to phone calls.”
Tala el-Monem, with Sudan’s older, post-independence blue, yellow and green flag draped over her shoulders, noted that, “Even though we’re far away, we’re trying to stand with our people. We’re trying, as much as we can, to do something.
“It’s little, but we’re trying.”
bdeachman@postmedia.com
Reem Abbas was part of Saturday's protest in Ottawa. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest in Ottawa was part of an international call for the restoration of civilian rule in Sudan. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Reem Abbas was part of Saturday's protest in Ottawa. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest began near the Global Affairs Canada building on Sussex Drive before heading to the Sudanese Embassy in Sandy Hill. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest began near the Global Affairs Canada building on Sussex Drive before heading to the Sudanese Embassy in Sandy Hill. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest in Ottawa was part of an international call for the restoration of civilian rule in Sudan. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest in Ottawa was part of an international call for the restoration of civilian rule in Sudan. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest in Ottawa was part of an international call for the restoration of civilian rule in Sudan. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest in Ottawa was part of an international call for the restoration of civilian rule in Sudan. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Saturday's protest in Ottawa was part of an international call for the restoration of civilian rule in Sudan. Photo by Ashley Fraser /Postmedia
Fahima Hashim was part of the protest in Ottawa on Saturday. Photo by Ashley Fraser /PostmediaNext Gallery ImageToggle gallery captions
Nfld. & Labrador
'They need your voices': St. John's protesters rally for Sudan after military coup
Protesters joined anti-coup protesters in Khartoum, Sudan, from a distance
Suad Mohamed and her husband Mohamed Birama organized a protest in St. John's on Saturday, as thousands of people took to the streets of Khartoum in faraway Sudan to protest a coup, in which the military seized power over the Northeast African country.
Mohamed and Birama fear for family and friends in Sudan.
"It's very stressful," said Mohamed.
"It's really hard even to know what's going on with your family or your friends.… We cannot be there, but we can do as much as we can here to support them."
Mohamed and her family came to Canada in 2003, and moved to St. John's in 2013, where her husband works as a veterinarian.
He says it's important to show solidarity with the people in Sudan.
"This is an international support organized all over the world so that the dictators who took over the power in Sudan should not be recognized and should not be supported and should also be isolated," said Birama.
In a military coup led by Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the transitional government under Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok was dissolved. Hamdok himself was arrested and is currently under house arrest.
In St. John's, about 30 protesters gathered in front of City Hall on Saturday to ask the Canadian government for support.
One of them was Omnia Khamis, a first-year nursing student who hasn't been able to reach her extended family in Sudan for a couple of days due to internet outages and cut phone lines.
"I haven't been able to connect to anybody," said Khamis.
"The internet comes back for like two or three hours a day and people post videos and stuff, but we haven't been able to reach our actual families."
Khamis grew up in St. John's, yet she still feels the need to support people in Sudan from a distance.
"Being Sudanese, I feel like no matter where you are, it's always going to be a part of you," she said.
"Any good thing or a bad thing that's happening in that country is going to affect you wherever you are, regardless of how far away you are."
Einam Mohamadain grew up in Sudan and arrived in St. John's in 2018 with her three children. Her mother and siblings are still in Sudan.
Mohamadain says the country was under military control since before she was born.
"We are here because we are running from the war," said Mohamadain.
"Every morning, I tell my kids how lucky we are to be in a safe place. They have education, they have health systems. They have the right to choose whatever they want to say or whatever they want to do."
The last time Sudan had an elected government was in 1989 when Omar al-Bashir took power with a coup. The country was then ruled by al-Bashir for 30 years before another coup removed him in 2019.
The country had since been ruled by a transitional government under Hamdok and a sovereign council led by Burhan. A technocratic prime minister is expected to be appointed in the coming days.
"Time for Sudan to experience some peace and … the right to choose who will be in power," said Mohamadain.
Joingingkwe Togol, who is originally from Darfur, says his family has been displaced by the conflict ongoing in the Darfur region since 2003.
"The Sudanese people should have their freedom. The Sudanese people deserve better. That's what we believe," said Togol.
He says the rally in front of city hall in St. John's is in solidarity with anti-coup protesters in Sudan.
"Many countries know exactly what is happening. But we also want the people in the western world to know exactly what is happening in Sudan, because that is really inhumane," said Togol.
Khamis agrees it's important to get people's attention about the political situation in Sudan.
"I just want the people in St. John's to know that the Sudanese people need your help," said Khamis.
"They need your support. They need your voices. Honestly, just your voices."
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