A political symposium to be addressed by Mohamad Diaudin and an official of the Popular Congress Party (PCP) in Khartoum, was banned by the security apparatus. The move is not consistent with the desired political climate for the National Dialogue, the PCP said.
The symposium was planned at the Omdurman Islamic University on Thursday. Kamal Omar, the political secretary of the PCP, commented that the next phase of the National Dialogue requires concessions to create conducive conditions for the dialogue to be held. He added that the banning by the security service undermines freedom and leads the country into endless losses.
The PCP announced that it will not participate in the 'pre-dialogue' meeting between the Sudan Revolutionary Front and the National Umma Party with the Sudanese government in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on Sunday and Monday. It claimed that the issues to be raised at the conference have already been discussed in Sudan.
Also the seven opposition parties that already participate in the National Dialogue's coordination mechanism, known as '7+7', issued a joint statement in which they refuse to participate in the meeting because they believe it paves the way for foreign intervention in the process. The conference will be brokered by the African Union's High-level Implementation Panel (AUHIP).
The AU has also passed invitations to five Sudanese academics, representatives of the native administrations, and Sufis to participate in the conference, being professor El Tayeb Zein El Abdeen, El Tayeb Haj Attia, Dr. Mansour Khalid, and Mahjoub Mohamed Saleh.