Al-Turabi arrested, again

Al-Turabi arrested, again

The power struggle between Hassan al-Turabi, the Sudanese opposition politician, and his former ally Omar al-Bashir, the country's president, shows no signs of ending.

If anything, it could well be intensifying, judging by the late-night arrest on Saturday of al-Turabi.

He has been in and out of custody during his political career - one marked by remarkable shifts in allegiances.

In the last few years, while in the opposition, al-Turabi has been imprisoned or held under house arrest on several occasions.

His relationship with al-Bashir was, of course, not always antagonistic.

Indeed, they were very close in the past: al-Turabi was one of al-Bashir's most trusted advisers when the latter seized power in 1989.

Al-Turabi was then the chairman of al-Bashir's National Congress Party (NCP).

But the two split over the introduction of a bill to limit the president's powers in 1999, a move which al-Bashir countered by dissolving parliament and declaring a state of emergency.

Deviation from sharia

In the course of an interview with al-Turabi last month in Khartoum, I asked him about the change in his relations with al-Bashir and the NCP.

They had "deviated" from the core values of sharia, al-Turabi said.

According to him, it was inevitable that the April elections in Sudan - the first that the country had in 24 years - would be relatively unfair and unjust.

He said he would continue to be vocal in his criticism of the Khartoum government.

Regarding the Darfur peace agreement, he said he did not feel that the peace agreement was moving fast enough, and that an agreement should have been in place by the elections so that Darfurians could participate.

His arrest comes just days after the Sudanese government renewed calls for the arrest of Khalil Ibrahim, the head of Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), a leading Darfur anti-government group, over a 2008 raid on the city of Omdurman.

The Khartoum government accuses al-Turabi of having ties with Jem and of seeking to ally himself with groups fighting against it.

Media freedoms

In separate recent moves, the government closed a newspaper run by al-Turabi's Popular Congress Party (PCP) and arrested its editor-in-chief as well as two other journalists.

Many journalists now fear that this is the beginning of a reversal of journalistic freedoms in the country.

While I was in Sudan covering the elections, some journalists told me that they were enjoying a welcome respite from censorship, but were worried that the situation would change once voting was over.

Durra Gambo, a Sudanese journalist, says the editors of all Sudanese newspapers were recently summoned to attend a meeting with the Academy of National Security.

"Many journalists fear that this could be when they will all be told that censorship will be back," she said.

"The media freedom we [enjoyed] during the elections may be over by tomorrow if the meeting turns out to be an announcement of the return of the censorship.

"The problem with censorship here is that there are no obvious rules, it is all subjective and what the people in charge feel is a red line."

'Express yourself'

Speaking on Sunday, Abdullah Hassan Ahmad, the deputy chairman of al-Turabi's PCP, said: "Al-Turabi is used to prison. This is not new to him and he will take this opportunity to contemplate, research and maybe write a book."

He also urged PCP supporters to express themselves by any means necessary, as long as they did not break the law.

"Demonstrate, strike, talk to every international media, exercise your right to be heard," Ahmad said.

He said that this was the "beginning of going back to old tricks" by the government, and cautioned other parties that their turn could be next.

Whatever plans al-Bashir's government may have for al-Turabi following his latest arrest, the political gulf between the former allies seems to be getting only wider with the passage of time.