General al-Burhan’s security forces have detained Sheikh al-Mubarak Ahmed Salem, 73, chair of the Khartoum North Council of Imams and a member of the Sudanese Council of Scholars, after he publicly declared that the current conflict is “no war of dignity, offers no martyrdom and will produce no victor.”
In a sermon earlier this week the cleric urged young people not to join either side, saying “every gun-bearer is wronging himself and will answer to God.”
His wife, Fawziya Ahmed Ibrahim, told local media that officers burst into their home after midnight, beat the diabetic, hypertensive cleric and accused him of siding with the pro-democracy “Qahata” movement before taking him to an undisclosed location. She appealed to activists to campaign for his release.
