Sudan’s Bashir: WhatsApp, Facebook don’t replace presidents

KHARTOUM: Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on Thursday mocked his opponents’ use of social media to mobilise protesters against his three-decade rule, saying that Facebook and WhatsApp can’t replace presidents.

“Changing the government or presidents cannot be done through WhatsApp or Facebook,” Bashir told a televised rally attended by hundreds of loyalists in the eastern town of Kassala. “It can be done only through elections. It’s only the people who decide who will be the president,” he said.

Sudanese police fired tear gas at crowds of demonstrators in the capital on Thursday, witnesses said, after campaigners called for new nationwide protests against President Omar al-Bashir’s rule.

Chanting “freedom, peace, justice,” the rallying cry of the protest movement that has rocked Sudan for weeks, demonstrators took to the streets in both Khartoum and its twin city Omdurman.“Riot police are firing tear gas at protesters in north Khartoum but they are still demonstrating,” a witness told AFP, declining to reveal his identity out of fear for his safety.