Five student supporters of SCP opposition party leader Ibrahim El Sheikh along with journalist Hassan Ishag began a hunger strike on Thursday in a detention facility in En Nahud, West Kordofan.

The six are protesting against their detention without charges. The students are members of the Independent Students’ Conference (ISC), according to Yasin Salah, ISC Secretary-General.

On 10 June they were all taken into ‘precautionary’ custody under the emergency law, they were told. Two of the students were detained when they were on their way to deliver a speech inside the University of West Kordofan condemning the arrest of Sudanese Congress Party (SCP) head Ibrahim El Sheikh earlier that day in En Nahud. El Jareeda newspaper correspondent Hassan Ishag was detained on the same day.

This came after SCP leader Ibrahim El Sheikh was taken by the security service from his home in En Nahud. He was charged with undermining the constitution after he publicly denounced widespread attacks by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces on civilians in Darfur and Kordofan.

Yasin said that the detainees will not stop their hunger strike until they are released, or charged and brought before a judge. He affirmed that all six were beaten: “Their health already has deteriorated by the beatings.”  

The five students are Marwan Ishag Arja and Fathi Mohamed, both studying at the University of Khartoum, Mohamed Abdin and Nasreldin Mohamed Hussein, students of the University of Sudan, and Abdel Rahim Osman, student at the University of West Kordofan.

File photo: People protest in front of En Nahud court against Ibrahim El Sheikh’s hearing, 12 June 2014 (Radio Dabanga)

Reporting by Radio Dabanga