THE Sudanese Communist Party (SCP) hailed a victory for international solidarity yesterday after a siege of its offices in Khartoum ended in the afternoon.

SCP central committee secretary Fathi el-Fadl said troops and police had pulled back after surrounding the building in the morning.

Security forces appeared two hours after the party leadership presented a memorandum to President Omar al-Bashir’s government demanding its dissolution, three days into a general strike and protests over cuts to heating fuel and food subsidies.

The Sudanese Democratic Lawyers group presented a similar petition.

Mr Fadl added that several political prisoners, including SCP politburo member and students officer Hanadi el-Fadl, who had been arrested on her return from delivering the statement, had been released.

Earlier Mr Fadl emailed fraternal communist parties around the world — and the Morning Star — to appeal for solidarity, saying the committee had called on all members to defend the party and its headquarters.

The government has closed a TV station and four newspapers — three on Tuesday night — seizing their editions to prevent them reporting on the strike.

Dozens of protest organisers and opposition party members have also been arrested.

Co-ordinating Committee of Communist Parties in Britain convenor Navid Shomali called on the trade union and labour movement to “register its protest at actions that threatened the lives and basic liberties of their colleagues in Sudan.”

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths sent a letter of protest to the embassy of Sudan in London, placing the arrests in the context of “a long period of arbitrary attacks by the government of Sudan on the civil and political liberties of its people.”

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