Why Does The Media Not Cover Sudan's Uprising?

For the past four weeks, Sudanese have been protesting, but for some reason the media does not cover this “Late Arab Spring”—all the more  necessary to piq a podcast about Sudan.

On Middle East Focus, host Alistair Taylor opens a discussion with Rania Biraq, a Sudanese activist who has been participating in the protests, and Nisrin Elamin, a doctoral candidate in anthropology at Stanford. According to Rania, the current protests are different from the previous ones which took place in 2011 and 2012. This time people are leading the movement, not political parties.

The price of bread recently increased from 2 to 5 Sudanese pounds and this hike was the catalyst behind the protests. In addition, the simplest services for citizens are absent in Sudan, including education and suitable infrastructure.

Al-Bashir ruled the country for 30 years, and is accused of war crimes by the International Criminal Court (ICC). After the uprising he accused the protestors of being “foreign agents", and there are some people who go among the protesters and kill the demonstrators. He stated that there will be changes by 2020. But this is not being accepted by many Sudanese.

According to Nisrin Elamin, the Al-Bashir regime claims that the reason behind the crisis is solely economical and due to external factors such as sanctions. Meanwhile, people soon extended their calls for peace, social justice, dignity, freedom and radical change. They believe that the corrupt political system has to change: Since the independence of Sudan, most of the governments were led by the military, and currently 70% of the budget is dedicated to the military.

Nasrin claimed that 2000 protesters have been arrested and 40 are dead. Unfortunately, the  EU and the international community play a negative role in this scenario with their continuous appeasement of Al-Bashir’s government. The EU paid US$250 million to Al-Bashir to secure the borders and prevent the passage of refugees from East Africa.