KHARTOUM — Sudanese police fired volleys of tear gas at worshipers trying to leave a mosque to demonstrate after Friday prayers, witnesses said, as the government attempts to quell a protest movement angry at tough austerity measures. The past three weeks have seen small-scale protests across Sudan calling for the government of President Omar Hassan Al-Bashir, in power for 23 years, to resign. Online activists, some of them inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings last year, have been using social media to call for even larger demonstrations. But Sudanese police and security forces have routinely and swiftly crushed any signs of dissent. Hundreds of people have been arrested and detained and one journalist has been deported, Sudanese activists say. On Friday, hundreds of Sudanese protesters left the Imam Abulrahman mosque in the Omdurman suburb of Khartoum en masse, only to be driven back inside by tear gas. “They had barely begun chanting for a minute. From the moment they left the mosque, the police fired teargas,” one witness said. “They have now escaped inside and the police are surrounding the mosque's courtyard.” A female activist who said she was at the mosque told Reuters that police fired teargas every time protesters chanted “Freedom. Peace. Justice. Revolution is the choice of the people”. “There was panicking. Some people were choking and gasping,” the activist, who declined to be named for security reasons, said by phone. — Reuters
