Khalda Saber is a Sudanese teacher and an activist who worked with a local NGO on women's rights issues. She was one of the women who led protest against the 30 years rule of President Omar al-Bashir which led to military takeover of the government. Saber encouraged fellow teachers and women she met on the streets in the city of Port Sudan while walking to the school where she taught to join the pro-democracy uprising.[1] “I was telling them that there is nothing to lose, compared with what we have already lost. I was telling them that we have to take to the streets, demonstrate and express our rejection to what's happening,”.[2][3]
Arrest
editTwo months into the protest Saber, was rounded up on a bus by plainclothes security agents and was taken to the notorious security and intelligence agency's local office.[4] For 40 days she remained in detention along with thousand other women who led protests against al-Bashir in a newly built wing in a prison in the capital, Khartoum.
Exile
editFollowing her release from detention, she joined a sit-in outside the military's headquarters in Khartoum in another demonstration. She received threats to life and family from Rapid Support Forces (RSF) a paramilitary group which is a breakaway faction of Janjaweed militias that had been used in the conflict in Sudan's Darfur region by al-Bashir.[5][6] Saber fled the country along with her husband and two daughters to Cairo, Egypt in a self-exile two days after al-Bashir was toppled by the military. Saber documented the RSF's human rights violations, especially against women, through testimonies before and during the uprising.[7]
References
edit- ^ "In new Sudan, Women Want More Freedom, Bigger Political Role | Voice of America - English". www.voanews.com. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ "In new Sudan, women want more freedom, bigger political role". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ "The Women's Revolution: Female Activism in Sudan". Harvard International Review. 2020-05-25. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ "Khalida Saber Detained Incommunicado in Ongoing Crackdown on Sudanese HRDs". Front Line Defenders. 2019-02-14. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ "In new Sudan, women want more freedom, bigger political role". Egypt Independent. 2019-09-19. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ "Khalda Saber". KSLNewsRadio. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
- ^ "Sudan Strives to Stop Violence Against Women | Voice of America - English". www.voanews.com. Retrieved 2021-02-02.
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