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Speaking out against domestic abuse is hard enough; speaking out against forced sex isn’t even an option. A society that thinks it’s okay for a man to hit his wife is likely to condone marital rape. Even though Abbou, the parliamentarian, personally favors criminalizing marital rape, she said it would be a difficult discussion in a patriarchal society like Tunisia, which still expects women to obey their husbands

“Maybe it’s better for me to stick around and be hit by my husband,” she said. “I’d rather be abused by one person than be abused by a whole society.”

My request is quite modest: that spokespeople and officials in your administration stop commenting on developments in Egypt.

When in December I met Michael Posner, assistant secretary of state for human rights and that rare person in your administration who is motivated by human rights concerns, I asked that he pass on this modest request to administration spokespeople: that as long as they cannot speak the truth about what is happening in Egypt, they keep silent.

Amnesty accused the Syrian government of carrying out a "policy of extermination" there by repeatedly torturing detainees and withholding food, water, and medical care.Prisoners were raped or forced to rape each other, and guards would feed detainees by tossing meals onto the cell floor, which was often covered in dirt and blood.

The group has previously said that more than 17,700 people were estimated to have died in government custody across Syria since the country's conflict erupted in March 2011.

According to the report, between 5,000 and13,000 inmates died in Saydnaya alone

"The cold-blooded killing of thousands of defenceless prisoners, along with the carefully crafted and systematic programmes of psychological and physical torture that are in place inside Saydnaya Prison cannot be allowed to continue," she said. A probe by the United Nations last year accused Assad's government of a policy of "extermination" in its jails. 

Anti-Black racism has only increased in Algeria with the arrival of tens of thousands of sub-Saharan Black, largely clandestine, migrants over the last two decades, who enter Algeria for educational or economic opportunities, or more often, to travel through the country en route to Europe.

20-25% of Algerians are native Amazigh speakers (Tamazight), and many more are Arabized Amazighs. The indigenous Amazighs have been struggling for equality since independence against a state determined to impose an Arab Muslim identity on the country’s entire population

When Algerians think of “racial” discrimination, it is likely that they first think of the treatment Algerian Arabs and Amazighs received at the hands of the French during the colonial period (1830-1962), and afterwards in France.27Kamel Daoud, “Black in Algeria? Then You’d Better be Muslim” The New York Times, May 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/03/opinion/kamel-daoud-black-in-algeria-then-youd-better-be-muslim.html . See also Seloua Luste Boulbina, “Si tu desires te Moquer du Noir: Habille-le en rouge”, Middle East Eye, 24 November 2018. https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/opinion-fr/si-tu-desires-te-moquer-du-noir-habille-le-en-rouge-0 The debate over Algeria as a post-colonial society has been fully engaged. However, in another sign of the invisibility of Algeria’s black citizens, consideration of Algeria as a post-slave society – and what that means for black Algerians today – has not

Black people, who were present in southern Algeria even before the 13- century-long  trans-Saharan slave trade, can be considered to be as indigenous to Algeria as the Amazigh population.

following a regional trend to repress diversity issues, the Algerian government has never taken a census to ascertain the total number of Algerian black citizens in the country, most of whom remain concentrated in the Saharan south. Ninety-one percent of the Algerian population lives along the Mediterranean coast on 12% of the country's total land mass.

Because most black Algerians are scattered in the vast southern Sahara, an area of the country about which many Algerians are not familiar, white Algerians may be only dimly aware, if aware at all, that they have black compatriots.25Ouzani, op.cit. Certainly, many black Algerians have reported that they face incredulity when claiming their national identity in northern Algeria at police roadblocks, airports, and even in doing everyday ordinary things like responding to a request for the time, “When I walk in the street and someone wants to ask me the time, he does it in French, convinced that he is dealing with a Nigerien or a Chadian, a way of indicating that an Algerian cannot be black.”

Amazigh activists have challenged the state’s assertion of Arab-Muslim homogeneity. Amazigh activism, in the form of mass protests and the undertakings of Amazigh-dominated political parties and civil society organizations, has pressured the state to constitutionally accept Amazigh identity as one of the components of Algerian identity, integrate the Amazigh language in secondary education, and recognize the Amazigh language as a national and later an official language of the state, in addition to Arabic

elites were also leaders of Third Worldism, and officially believed in pan-Africanism. Ahmed Ben Bella, Algeria’s first post-independence president, declared in Accra, Ghana, in 1963: “It was the imperialists who tried to distinguish between the so-called white and black Africans.”

in Saharan areas, the slave trade continued throughout the period of French settler colonialism (1830-1962)

Arab-Berber whites constructed an economy that relied on black slave labour from their Haratins (enslaved or recently freed Islamicized and Arabized Blacks, who are still susceptible to forced labour practices).31These ambiguously freed black slaves in Saharan areas of Algeria are also called Bella or Ikelan if they were enslaved by Amazighs, including Tuaregs. Today Haratins, mostly sharecroppers, work under harsh labour conditions that some have described as a modern form of slavery, they “dig and tend wells, excavate and maintain the underground channels of foggara, irrigate gardens, tend to flocks, and cultivate dates”.32Benjamine Claude Brower, “Rethinking Abolition in Algeria,” Cahier D’etudes Africaines 49, 2009 Some argue that without the labour of enslaved Black people, the Sahara would never have been habitable at all.33Ibid. The arduous and relentless work to irrigate in a desert includes digging channels tens of feet into the sand with the risk of being drowned under it.

The French accommodated slavery in the Algerian Sahara more than anywhere else. Slave masters and merchants were given permission to trade in slaves and keep those they owned well into the twentieth century.35Ibid. In exchange, slavers and merchants provided intelligence on far-off regions to colonial authorities

there is reason to believe that enslaved black people continue to be exploited for agricultural work in the southern oases of Ouargla and Ghardaia provinces to this day (among wealthy families, owners of large palm trees, fields, and farms) and in some instances among semi-nomadic Tuareg

The Algerian state has never adopted any policies, including any affirmative action policies, to help their black community emerge from the impact of generations of servitude and brutalization.40Brower, op.cit. Instead, it has sought to legitimize the country’s white Arab-Muslim identity only

descendants of freed Black slaves (Haratins) in Saharan regions of Algeria often remain dependent upon former “masters.” Most work as sharecroppers in conditions similar to slavery

Black Algerians also face discrimination in urban areas of the country. They encounter the same racist attitudes and racial insults as any other person with dark skin within Algerian borders.

Either by their colour, k’hal, which is twisted into kahlouche (blackie), mer ouba (charcoal), guerba kahla (a black gourd to hold water made out of goatskin), nigro batata (big nose that resembles a potato), haba zeitouna (black olive), babay (nigger), akli (Black slave in some Berber areas), rougi  (redhead or Swedish to imply that the black person is culturally and socially white, as everyone must want to be), saligani (from Senegal) 46Khiat, op.cit., Calling black Algerians Saligani (from Senegal) has a different history. It refers back to the early decades of the 20th century when the French utilized black West-African soldiers in their colonial army to do the dirty work of colonialization, including brutalizing members of the population that resisted French rule, taking food from farmers, and rape. or by direct references to past servile status: hartani (dark black slave or ex-slave forced to work outside the master’s house), khadim (servant), ouacif (domestic slave), ‘abd (slave), ‘abd m’cana (stinky black slave).47Ibid. Using these terms against a black Algerian passerby establishes difference, contempt, strangeness, rejection, distance, and exclusion

In addition to racial insults, a black Algerian academic has noted, “Our community continues to symbolize bad luck. Worse: in the stories of grandmothers, we play the bad roles, kidnappers of children, looters, or vagrants. [While Arabs and Berbers can both point to a proclaimed noble history in Algeria] there is no place for a black hero in the collective memory of my people.”

In addition to rejection of interracial marriages, an Algerian intellectual has reported cases of “white” Algerians refusing to room with Blacks or study with them at university

A step forward in reducing Negrophobia, the selection of Khadija Benhamou, a black woman from the Algerian Sahara, as Miss Algeria in 2019 has been marred by the subsequent deluge of posts on social media virulently claiming that she did not represent the beauty of the country, with many direct attacks against the colour of her skin.

Partly due to pressure on Algeria to control its borders from the European Union, Black sub-Saharan African migrants have been vilified by the Algerian government and some of the press;59https://insidearabia.com/algeria-desert-deportations-eu-migration/ accused – usually falsely – of violence, selling drugs, promiscuity, spreading venereal diseases, perpetuating anarchy, and raping Algerian women.

Without irony, some graffiti and social media posts called on the migrants to “Go back to Africa.”

Three generations after independence, the Algerian state is still resisting the open public debate and civil society engagement needed to reflect the country’s pluralism and to begin to reckon with slave legacies and racial discrimination

Torture and degrading treatment continue to be systematically practiced against Egyptian citizens

The president and his party undertook a campaign to attack freedom of the press through statements aimed at reducing the relative freedom which is currently allowed and by submitting various complaints to the investigative authorities against journalists and other media professionals. [4] Moreover, representatives of the president’s party in the constituent assembly supported the inclusion within the new constitution of provisions which allow for such repressive practices against the media, including the detention of journalists.

protests have repeatedly been suppressed through excessive use of force

police and the security establishment continue to shirk their legal responsibility to protect political and social protests and have been complicit in crimes of rape and sexual assault against female protestors

a new draft law on civil society associations which would eliminate the already limited margin available for forming associations, especially human rights organizations

National Council for Human Rights (NCHR) lacks independence, as the majority of its members belong to the ruling coalition. Indeed, a number of its members are well-known for their hostility towards human rights, and some of them use sectarian political speech publicly, including language inciting to hatred and violence against both Muslim and non-Muslim religious minorities. Given the NCHR’s current composition and its practices to date, it is clear that the current purpose of the NCHR is to conceal or downplay human rights violations, rather than to expose and condemn them, as well as to enhance the image of the government before the international community. While the NCHR suffered perpetually from a lack of independence under the Mubarak regime, it has now completely lost all semblance of independence and has become an indirect platform for some of its members to publicly incite against human rights

Due to her gender identity, Malak is at increased risk of torture by the police, including rape and sexual violence, as well as assault by other detainees

Malak al-Kashef is a transgender woman who is undergoing gender affirming surgery. However, she has not yet managed to have her gender identity officially recognized and is therefore registered as male in official documents

Organized by SOLIC (the division of Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict), the principal civilian advisor to the Secretary of Defense, the screening’s purpose was to cast doubt on the over-confident nation-building rhetoric of the neoconservatives in the Bush administration. The flier publicizing the screening warned that you can “win a battle against terrorism and lose the war of ideas.” It gestured to disconcerting similarities between Algeria and events beginning to unfold in Iraq: “Children shoot soldiers at point-blank range. Women plant bombs in cafes. Soon the entire Arab population builds to a mad fervor. Sound familiar?” Barely three months after Bush declared “mission accomplished” in Iraq, SOLIC was presenting a different scenario shaped by the tenets of counterinsurgency

After the film’s high-profile screenings at the Pentagon and the Council on Foreign Relations, it was rereleased by the Criterion Collection in a special three-disc edition. The bonus materials included a conversation with Richard A. Clarke, former chief counterterrorism advisor on the National Security Council and an outspoken critic of the Bush administration, and Michael Sheehan, who led SOLIC from 2011 to 2013 and who currently holds a distinguished Chair at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point — one of the Professional Military Education institutions where The Battle of Algiers is regularly taught. Both Clarke and Sheehan use the film to make the case that defeating an insurgency requires winning the “war of values and ideas.” With one eye trained on Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, they emphasize that having recourse to practices such as torture inevitably undermines any attempt at a political solution.

All of the defense professionals whom I spoke with tied their interest in the film to their advocacy of counterinsurgency strategies that emphasize political solutions and reject tactics such as torture

the inescapable lesson of The Battle of Algiers is that if you act as the French did in Algeria, you’re going to lose

To hold that it’s better to win people over with values and ideas rather than by force is good in principle, but it assumes that there are social and political principles that could unite all parties. This seems highly questionable in a situation such as Iraq, where the objectives of the US presence have been far less straightforward than those of the French in Algeria, and where “insurgency” has become increasingly protean.

The film seems to be taught in military colleges as a mirror of history, while history is approached as a reservoir of examples from which lessons can be drawn. Ben Nickels, an associate professor at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies at the National Defense University, observed that this approach is somewhat symptomatic of the field of military history as a whole. Over the last 30 years, military history has all but vanished from the academic mainstream, flourishing only in professional military education, where it has been sheltered from historiographical practices that focus on primary documents as contingent representations.

important to acknowledge the selective, largely symbolic ways in which it frames the war. Consider, for example, its famous treatment of the issue of torture. Though the film examines torture as a moral and political problem, it nonetheless approaches it in the same way that counterinsurgency theory does — as a form of muscular interrogation whose purpose is to obtain actionable intelligence. Yet as Raphaëlle Branche, the leading authority on the question, has shown, torture was used in Algeria not only to extract information but also — as in Latin America and more recently Iraq — as a mode of psychological warfare. Practiced on women as well as men, and often taking the form of rape, it became, above all, a way of inflicting humiliation.

In one of the film’s most famous scenes, women who are about to set off bombs in the European quarter are shown unveiling and changing their appearance in order to look more French. In reality, the women responsible for setting bombs were mostly students who already dressed in European style. Though the film shows them acting under the tutelage of Saadi Yacef, they were often better educated than their male colleagues. Since gender remains a focal point of American foreign policy in the Middle East, it’s important to recognize that depictions of Muslim societies frequently distort or oversimplify the nature of their gender relations.

A half century after the film’s making, the film inspires more left-wing nostalgia than genuine revolutionary fervor

Before the 2011 revolution, the spread of internet access and the rise of blogs and social media allowed Egypt’s LGBTQ citizens a degree of breathing space. Some used blogs and social media to campaign for their rights, while others saw it primarily as a medium via which they could meet and date. Some of the leading human rights activists and anti-Mubarak dissidents were members of the LGBTQ community. But neither LGBTQ movement evolved on the ground nor was gay liberation a cause on the agenda of any political party. The situation did not change much after the outbreak of the 25 January Revolution, though a relatively healthier atmosphere existed briefly from 2011 to 2013, during which some gender taboo issues could be discussed and raised in mainstream circles. The July 2013 military coup, led by Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, ended all that. The EIPR has recorded the arrest of at least 232 “LGBTQ suspects” between the last quarter of 2013 and March 2017.

The only political group, as of this writing, to take a clear public position against the crackdown and homophobia is the Revolutionary Socialists. The liberal Ad-Dustour Party’s spokesperson Khaled Dawoud condemned the arrests, but according to a source in the party this sparked an internal controversy, and it was decided in the end that his statement was solely his and not the party’s.

Ironically, amid an ongoing domestic anti-LGBTQ campaign, Egypt had the audacity to condemn the Orlando gay nightclub shooting in June 2016 in the US. Yet Sisi’s homophobic crusade had already gone international, with his diplomats boycotting the UN’s monitor on anti-gay violence, then later voting (together with the US, Botswana, Burundi, Ethiopia, Bangladesh, China, India, Iraq, Japan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates) against a UN resolution condemning the death penalty for LGBTQ people and other groups.

in times of defeats and counterrevolutions, reactionary ideas flourish

Sensationalist crackdowns on “queers”, “Satanists”, “wife swappers” etc. is a classic tactic by any dictatorship to divert public attention away from its political and economic failures. And Sisi needs such diversion, as the economy is going down the drain.

Sarah Hegazi, herself, reportedly resigned from the left-leaning Bread and Freedom Party shortly before her arrest because the party refused to take a stand in solidarity with the LGBTQ community. With her arrest, the party issued a brief, weak statement denouncing the arrest, but did not dare take a clear stand against homophobia.

Not a single Western embassy in Cairo has issued a condemnation up till now, amid hypersales of arms to Egypt and the signing of security cooperation agreements against “terrorism” and “illegal migration”.

The repeal of the directive that banned Muslim women from marrying non-Muslim men comes a month after Essebsi announced his intention to change laws about gender inequality in inheritance. This proposal was lauded as bringing about a necessary legislative reform, but also criticized as an attempt at revivifying the modernist-secularist divide in the country. But the Islamist party Ennahda didn’t take the bait. It refrained from publicly opposing the reform of inheritance law and the repeal of the 1973 marriage law. Whether or not the president’s objective in proposing these changes was to force Ennahda to take a stance against “progress” and gender equality, this strategy did not work. Ennahda has refrained from opposing any of these so-called modernist projects.

while it is true that the nexus of corrupt business elite, police and government media is winning back significant power, the vote of the amnesty law has also triggered a unique display of protest and resistance that was utterly unimaginable under Ben Ali

while the old regime tactics remain active in Tunisia, the collective public energy of the 2011 revolution is still alive

Parliament Speaker Rached Ghannouchi condemned the incident. However, Abbou has accused Ghannouchi of encouraging a “culture of violence” with his "inertia", and has vowed to continue her hunger strike “until the head of parliament assumes his responsibilities” and publishes a “statement condemning the violence and the aggressors".

“We cannot entrust the interests of Tunisians to this assembly, which is full of smugglers and tax evaders," she said, referring to the president of the Qalb Tounes Party, Nabil Karoui, who has been implicated in cases of money laundering and tax evasion, as well as the head of the al-Karama bloc, Seif Eddine Makhlouf, also accused of tax evasion.

between November 2019 and July 2020 there were a number of attacks against female politicians at the assembly, including misogynistic remarks and death threats

The Democratic bloc, which has 38 MPs and is supported by other blocs and a number of independents, has spent the last month holding a sit-in at the parliament to express fears over their safety there.

While Article 68 of Tunisia’s constitution states that “no civil or penal legal proceedings can be brought against a member of the Assembly of the Representatives of the People, nor the latter be arrested or tried, because of opinions or proposals expressed or acts carried out in connection with his parliamentary functions”, physical and verbal attacks are not protected by the parliamentary immunity enjoyed by MPs and are liable to legal proceedings. 

The April 2019 revolution, which ended Omar al-Bashir’s 30-year military rule, brought hope that a civilian regime would emerge to govern Sudan. But – less than a year since the appointment of the transitional prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok – this hope is fading fast.

In February 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) described Sudan’s economic prospects as “alarming” – unusually blunt language by its standards. Then came covid-19 and the associated global economic downturn. The IMF revised its assessment: Sudan’s GDP would shrink by 7.2 percent in 2020. By April, inflation had risen to almost 100 percent (one independent estimate finds that inflation may have hit around 116 percent). Adding to this grim catalogue of calamities, the swarms of locusts that have ravaged the Horn of Africa in the worst outbreak in 70 years are widely expected to arrive in Sudan in mid-June. The United States Agency for International Development estimates that more than 9 million Sudanese will require humanitarian assistance this year.

Despite the fact that a “constitutional declaration” places the civilian-dominated cabinet in charge of the country, the generals are largely calling the shots. They control the means of coercion and a tentacular network of parastatal companies, which capture much of Sudan’s wealth and consolidate their power at the expense of their civilian partners in government

In particular, Hamdok will need to establish civilian authority over the parastatal companies controlled by the military and security sector. The task is daunting and fraught with risks, but Hamdok can acquire greater control by taking advantage of the rivalry between Hemedti and General Abdelfattah al-Buhran, the de facto head of state.

draws on 54 recent interviews with senior Sudanese politicians, cabinet advisers, party officials, journalists, former military officers, activists, and representatives of armed groups, as well as foreign diplomats, researchers, analysts, and officials from international institutions

Sudan’s chance for democratisation is the product of a difficult struggle against authoritarianism. For three decades, Bashir ruled as the president of a brutal government. He took power in 1989 as the military figurehead of a coup secretly planned by elements of the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood, before pushing aside Islamist ideologue Hassan al-Turabi, who had masterminded the plot. During his rule, Bashir survived US sanctions, isolation from the West, several insurgencies, the secession of South Sudan, a series of economic crises, and arrest warrants from the International Criminal Court for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Darfur. He presided over ruthless counter-insurgency campaigns that deepened political rifts and destroyed the social fabric of peripheral regions such as Darfur, South Kordofan, and Blue Nile.

he turned pro-government tribal militias from Darfur into the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an organisation led by Hemedti, as insurance

Throughout the 2010s, the Bashir regime put down successive waves of protests. But the uprising that began on December 2018 – triggered by Bashir’s decision to lift subsidies on bread – proved too much for the government to contain

a coalition of trade unions called the Sudanese Professionals Association (SPA) established informal leadership of nationwide demonstrations

As junior officers vowed to protect demonstrators, the leaders of the military, the RSF, and the NISS put their mistrust of one another aside, overthrew Bashir, and installed a junta

On 3 June, the last day of Ramadan, the generals sent troops to crush the sit-in. RSF militiamen and policemen beat, raped, stabbed, and shot protesters, before throwing the bodies of many of their victims into the Nile. Around 120 people are thought to have been killed and approximately 900 wounded in the massacre.

prompted Washington and London to pressure Abu Dhabi and Riyadh to curb the abuses of their client junta

envisioned a transition that would – over the course of a little more than three years, and under the guidance of a civilian-led cabinet of ministers – reach a peace deal with armed groups from the peripheral regions of Sudan, while establishing a new constitutional order and free elections

When Hamdok, a UN economist picked by the FFC, took office on 21 August, there were grounds for cautious optimism. The peace talks with armed groups began in earnest and seemed to make rapid progress. Hamdok inherited a catastrophic economic situation and political structure in which the generals remained in high office but the constitutional declaration put civilians in the driving seat. Western countries expressed their full support for the transition. The journey would be difficult, but its direction was clear.

Sudanese citizens have gained new civil and political rights since the transition began. The new authorities have curtailed censorship. The harassment and arbitrary, often violent detentions conducted by NISS officers have largely ended. Minorities such as Christians now have freedom of religion. The government has repealed the public order law, which allowed for public floggings. And it is in the process of criminalising female genital mutilation.

The authorities have not achieved much on transitional justice.[3] The head of the commission in charge of investigating the 3 June massacre of revolutionary demonstrators said he could not protect witnesses. The authorities said they are willing to cooperate with the International Criminal Court to try Bashir and the other wanted leaders, but the generals are blocking a handover of the suspects to The Hague

By 2018, the authorities were struggling to finance imports, and queues were forming outside petrol stations. The economic slide continued, prompting Bashir’s downfall. It has only continued since then. The Sudanese pound, which traded at 89 to the dollar in the last weeks of Bashir’s rule, now trades at 147 to the dollar.

Although the state sponsor of terrorism designation does not impose formal sanctions on Sudan, it sends a political signal that stigmatises the country, deters foreign investment and debt relief, and casts doubt on Washington’s claim to support civilian government. Unfortunately for Hamdok, Sudan does not sit high on the list of priorities of the current US administration. President Donald Trump decided not to fast-track Sudan’s removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism, allowing the process to take the bureaucratic route and become enmeshed in the conflicting perspectives of the State Department, national security and defence agencies, and Congress

The European Union has pledged €250m in new development assistance (along with €80m in support against covid-19) to Sudan, while Sweden has pledged €160m, Germany €80m, and France €16m-17m. Yet these are paltry figures in comparison to Europeans’ declared commitments

The path to debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country (HPIC) Initiative is long in any circumstances. But US indifference, European timidity, and the indecisiveness of Hamdok’s cabinet have combined to kill off hopes that the diplomatic momentum Sudan established in September and October 2019 would quickly translate into substantial international assistance

Donors want the Sudanese government to commit to reforms that will have a social cost in return for a promise of unspecified levels of funding. The pledges Sudan receives in June could fall far below the estimated $1.9 billion the government needs, forcing the authorities to create the social safety net only gradually.[8] This would go against the logic of a temporary programme designed to offset one-off price hikes. In these conditions, subsidy reform – however necessary – is a gamble for the government.

Failure to stabilise Sudan’s economy would have far-reaching consequences for not only the country but also the wider region. Since Hamdok’s appointment, the domestic balance of power has once again tilted in favour of the generals, who could seize on the climate of crisis to restore military rule. If they remove civilian leaders from the equation, rival factions within the military and security apparatus will be set on a collision course.

Within the government, the configuration of power that has emerged since September 2019 bears little resemblance to the delicate institutional balance – enshrined in the constitutional declaration – that the FFC fought so hard to achieve in its negotiations with the junta.

The generals’ public relations machine is now well-oiled. The military opened a bakery in Atbara, the cradle of the 2018-2019 uprising. Hemedti has established health clinics and a fund to support farmers; his forces have distributed RSF-branded food supplies and launched a mosquito-eradication campaign.

Neither Hamdok nor the FFC has attempted to mobilise public support when faced with obstruction by, or resistance from, the generals. As such, they have given up one of the few cards they held and created the impression that they have been co-opted by the old regime. The popularity of the FFC has collapsed; Hamdok earned considerable goodwill with the Sudanese public in late 2019, but their patience with him is wearing thin. Many activists say that they would be back on the streets if it were not for covid-19 (which has so far had a limited health impact on Sudan but, as elsewhere, led to restrictions on public gatherings).

The so-called “Arab troika” of the UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt have taken advantage of the revolution to sideline their regional rivals Turkey and Qatar, which had long supported Bashir’s regime. The Emiratis, in cooperation with the Saudis, are playing a particularly active role in shaping Sudan’s political process, reportedly spending lavishly and manoeuvring to position Hemedti as the most powerful man in the new Sudan

The Emiratis are widely known to be generous with their covert financial contributions, which flow either directly to various political actors or, indirectly, through Hemedti.[20] Mohammed Dahlan, the Palestinian exile who runs many important security projects on behalf of Emirati ruler Mohammed bin Zayed, handles the UAE’s Sudan file.[21] Former Sudanese general Abdelghaffar al-Sharif, once widely considered the most powerful man in the NISS, reportedly lives in Abu Dhabi and has put his formidable intelligence network at the service of the UAE.

The Arab troika has also worked to undermine Hamdok and prop up the generals

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have avoided financing transparent mechanisms such as the World Bank’s Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Meanwhile, Hemedti appears to have a large supply of cash with which to support the central bank. In March, he deposited $170m in the bank. These developments suggest that the Gulf powers could be using their financial might to shape the outcome of Sudan’s domestic political process, redirecting flows of money to prop up Hemedti and exacerbating the economic crisis to position him as a saviour

The levels of resentment between the RSF and SAF are such that many officers fear a local incident could escalate into broader clashes between the two forces

Beyond subsidies, the economic debate in Sudan has recently turned to the issue of how the civilian authorities can acquire greater revenue – particularly by recovering assets stolen by the Bashir regime, and by gaining control of the sprawling network of parastatal companies affiliated with the military and security sector.

It is not difficult to identify who to tax: companies owned by NCP businessmen, Bashir’s family, the SAF, the NISS, and the RSF play a dominant role in the economy, yet benefit from generous tariff and tax exemptions

the military and security apparatus has shares in, or owns, companies involved in the production and export of gold, oil, gum arabic, sesame, and weapons; the import of fuel, wheat, and cars; telecommunications; banking; water distribution; contracting; construction; real estate development; aviation; trucking; limousine services; and the management of tourist parks and events venues. Defence companies manufacture air conditioners, water pipes, pharmaceuticals, cleaning products, and textiles. They operate marble quarries, leather tanneries, and slaughterhouses. Even the firm that produces Sudan’s banknotes is under the control of the security sector.

These companies are shrouded in secrecy; high-level corruption and conflicts of interest make the boundaries between private and public funds porous

The generals are using dark money to keep the civilian government on life support, ensuring that it remains dependent on them

Following decades of consolidated authoritarianism, Sudan has entered a rare period of instability in its balance of power.

The US, Europe, and international financial institutions have left Sudan to its own devices, allowing its economy to tank and its political transition to stall. In the interim, the generals have expanded their reach and FFC leaders have returned to Sudan’s traditional elite bargaining, at the expense of institutional reform. Western inaction has also enabled regional actors – chief among them Abu Dhabi and Riyadh – to play a prominent role in Sudan, dragging the country closer to military rule or a civil war.

Across the region, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have demonstrated their preference for military governments over civilian-led democracies. Their recent actions in Sudan suggest that they may hope to repeat their success in helping return the military to power in Egypt in 2013. But this would be both cynical and naïve. A strong civilian component in the government is a prerequisite for stability in Sudan. The country’s conflicts are a direct result of state weakness – a weakness that pushed Bashir’s military government to use undisciplined militias to repress citizens, fuelling cycles of instability and the emergence of a fragmented military and security apparatus. In the current political environment, any attempt to formally impose military rule could ignite further instability and even a civil war.

As the recent efforts of the Republican Party in the United States demonstrate, the right of centre parties introduces these kinds of restrictions because they look democratic while serving to disenfranchise the working class, Black, Asian and other minority voters who don’t tend to vote for them.

In a move that UK representatives would criticize if it happened in Africa or Asia, politicians have been given greater control over how the Commission works. In particular, the Bill hands the government the authority to issue a “Strategy and Policy Statement” setting out its electoral priorities, which the Commission is expected to follow.

Even more shocking for those of us who have studied electoral manipulation is the removal of the Commission’s ability to bring criminal prosecutions when parties fail to respect campaign finance regulations. This is particularly striking because the weakness of the Electoral Commission in this area – and in particular the meagre fines that it can hand out to rule-breakers – has already facilitated delinquent behaviour.

a British government has deliberately weakened the power of the Electoral Commission in precisely the area where it was caught flouting the law

Declining democratic standards in one country further lower the bar that leaders around the world think they need to meet. Corrupt politics makes it easier for authoritarian regimes to buy influence abroad and facilitates transnational criminal networks. And double standards between what the government does back home and what British representatives call for abroad will lead to accusations of hypocrisy, making it easier for the likes of Vladimir Putin to mobilise support in the parts of the world already suspicious of the motives of “Western” governments.

Weakening democracy in one country hurts the fight for freedom everywhere.