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Award-winning Sudanese filmmaker Hajooj Kuka, who was sentenced to two months in prison for causing “public nuisance”, was released by a Khartoum court on Thursday, along with four other artists.
“Hajooj Kuka, Doaa Tarig … and three other people were released by the appeals court,” said their lawyer Othman al-Basri. AFP.
Kuka, along with four fellow artists from the “Civic Lab” collective, were sentenced in September to two months in jail and a 5,000 Sudanese pound ($ 90) fine for causing “public nuisance” and violating the new curfew. coronavirus.
The Civic Laboratory collective was formed in the wake of, and inspired by, the massive protests that last year toppled the autocrat Omar al-Bashir.
According to Sudanese activist Tahani Abbas, the police arrested the eleven artists on August 10 while they were rehearsing a play following a complaint from neighbors.
Kuka had said on Twitter in August that he and others were “attacked during a theater workshop in #khartoum by Islamist instigators. The police supported the attackers and arrested us.”
Basri said the cases of the other six artists will be reviewed on Monday.
Steven Markowitz, who produced Kuka’s recent film “aKasha,” shown at the Venice film festival, took to Twitter to praise the decision.
“Good news! Hajooj and the four artists have just been released … International pressure made the difference,” he wrote.
“There are still six artists in jail pending appeal and many more people who have been arbitrarily detained in Sudan.”
Markowitz had condemned what he called the “bogus charges” against the artists, urging supporters to press for their release.
Another Kuka film, “Beats of the Antonov,” won the People’s Choice Documentary Award at the 2014 Toronto Film Festival, and the Sudanese filmmaker was recently invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the responsible body. of the Oscars.
Sudan is undergoing a precarious political transition under a joint civil-military government that was formed after months of protests following the expulsion of Bashir in April last year.
Bashir had come to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989.
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