Mahmoud Mohamed Taha, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Growing confrontation with President Nimeiry
After Taha's public lectures were banned in 1973, his disciples operated with some difficulty throughout most of Nimeiry's rule. Although their activities were always within the law, their views tended to arouse opposition from traditional and fundamentalist religious and political circles.

Their opponents succeeded at times in applying various administrative and executive mechanisms to obstruct or limit the effectiveness of the Republicans. Denied access to the media, all of which were state-owned at that time, the Republicans had to prepare their own publications and seek unorthodox channels to reach the public. They had to resort, for example, to the use of street corners and public parks to address whoever was willing to stop and listen to what they had to say. The police often intervened to break up those spontaneous public meetings, charging the Republicans conducting the meetings with "breach of the peace" and "disturbance of public tranquility." The Republicans' frequent protests against those infringements of their fundamental constitutional rights were futile. Despite these restrictions, the Republicans supported the regime of President Nimeiry throughout the 1970s and into the early 1980s. Their support was forthcoming as long as the regime maintained policies of national unity and refrained from applying Sharia to the detriment of women and non-Muslim Sudanese. The Republicans also believed that the regime of President Nimeiry was preferable to the only available alternative, a sectarian and "fundamentalist" civilian dictatorship. Only after Sharia was imposed by presidential decrees beginning in August of 1983, thereby undermining national unity between the Muslim north and non-Muslim south and leading to harsh and repressive policies in the country as a whole, did the Republicans declare their opposition. In other words, their opposition was prompted by the change in the nature and policies of the regime rather than the 1983 detention of the group's leadership as such. Taha himself had previously been detained together with eight leaders of the group, for one month in 1976-77 without charge for publishing a book criticizing the Wahhabi movement of Saudi Arabia. He had also personally suffered what was in effect a total ban on his public activities since 1973. The group endured those restrictions and harassment for over ten years without opposing the regime of former President Nimeiry.

The immediate or apparent cause of the detention in mid-1983 was a pamphlet issued by the Republicans. It criticized what they perceived to be the failure of the chief of state security, who also happened to be the first vice-president of the republic, to check Islamic fundamentalists' incitement of religious hatred, and abetment of violence against the Republicans and against non-Muslim Sudanese.

In hindsight, however, and in the light of subsequent developments, it would seem that at least the continuation of the leaders' detention, if not the initial sweeping detention order, was motivated by other considerations. A few weeks after their detention, President Nimeiry announced his intention to impose Sharia law. If the Republicans were free, it must have been thought, they would actively oppose that policy, because it contravened their long-held position that there must be radical reform of Sharia prior to its modern implementation. When that policy materialized in a series of enactments starting in August 1983, the Republicans started an opposition campaign with their leadership still in detention. Despite their active opposition to President Nimeiry's policy of imposed Islamization, or perhaps because of that opposition, the Republicans were all released on December 19, 1984, after approximately nineteen months in detention without charge. It became apparent later on this ster was a deliberate trap to involve the Republicans in overt acts rendering them liable to prosecution under the new laws. That mass release on December 19, 1984, marked the beginning of the sequence of events culminating in the execution of Taha four weeks later. While being aware of those intentions, Taha immediately assumed responsibility for the campaign against President Nimeiry's Islamization policy. Within one week of their release, on December 25thn 1984, a leaflet ("Hatha Aow Al-Tawafan" – “Either This or the Flood”) was issued demanding repeal of the new laws and a guarantee of democratic civil liberties under which to debate the principles and process of Islamization.

The initial police reaction to the leaflet was ambivalent, because of the recent mass release of the Republicans. Moreover, the mild language and content of the leaflet itself gave no cause for serious charges under existing laws. Some police districts arrested a few Republicans who were found distributing the leaflet and charged them with the minor offense of breach of the peace under section 127 of the penal code. In some cases, however, police officers actually intervened to instruct an arresting policeman to release a Republican because no offense was committed.

It was at this point that the state minister for criminal affairs intervened and instructed public prosecutors in the three towns of Khartoum, Omdurman, and Khartoum North to press charges of sedition, undermining the constitution, inciting unlawful opposition to the government, and disturbing public tranquility under sections 96, 105 and 127A of the Penal Code of 1983, as well as membership in an unlawful organization under section 20 of the State Security Act of 1973. With the charges thereby transformed into capital offenses, ten recently arrested Republicans were to remain in custody, as the new charges permitted no release on bail. On Wednesday, January 2, 1985, the four Republicans who were arrested and charged in Omdurman central district were brought to trial before one of the special criminal courts established under the Judiciary Act of 1984.

Taha, accompanied by all the Republicans, men as well as women, marched in a peaceful demonstration to that court. The trial was adjourned, however, because the serious charges required the special sanction of the president of the republic. On Saturday afternoon, January 5, Taha was arrested at his house in Omdurman and charged with the same combination of offenses. On Monday morning, January 7, Taha and the original four Republicans were brought to trial before the special criminal court after sanction for the trial was obtained from the president of the republic. Again the Republicans marched in a peaceful demonstration which was intercepted by the police. The Republicans reacted by sitting on the ground according to Taha's directions. Nevertheless, they were compelled to proceed in smaller groups when it was apparent that the real aim was to divert them from attending the court. It is important to note here that the president's sanction included the directive to add section 458(3) and the penal code to the charges. That section authorized the court to impose any Hadd penalty, that is, specific penalty provided for by Sharia, regardless of the lack of statutory penal provision. That section violated the express provisions of Article 70 of the 1973 Constitution, which was still in force at the time.

But because the five accused decided to boycott the trial proceedings because of their objections to the laws under which the court was constituted and purported to act, and also because of their objections to the calibre of the judges presiding in those courts, the unconstitutionality of charges under section 458(3) of the penal code was never discussed at any stage of the case.

In announcing his decision to boycott the proceedings, Taha improvised a strong statement.


...To come

Trial and execution