How fake news from Sudan’s regime backfired

The BBC has uncovered evidence that Sudan's security services tried to undermine popular protests by rounding up students, torturing them until they admitted to violent intent, and spreading false confession videos on Facebook and state TV. But the plot backfired, and now the students can tell their story.
"You are dirty! You are slaves!"
Racist insults rained down on John and his friends as, he claims, the security services beat them with fists and sticks and stunned them with electric shocks.
BBC Arabic's investigations team has spoken to multiple sources who can attest to the torture that John and his fellow students from Darfur underwent, for hours at a time.
John believes they were being tested: which of them would confess to being part of a Darfuri rebel group and inciting violence in Sudan?

How the protests grew

Since mid-December, anti-government protests have rocked Sudan nearly every day. During the demonstrations, the government cracked down hard. Human rights groups say that well over 60 people have been killed. Many more have been injured and hundreds arrested.
The crackdown did not deter the protesters however. On 11 April President Omar al-Bashir was ousted in a military coup after 30 years in power.
John, whose name has been changed for this article because of concerns for his safety, hadn't taken part in the protests when they began in December. But that didn't stop him being swept up in a raid on a student house in Sennar, a town on the Blue Nile south-east of Khartoum.

Forced confessions

When the protests started escalating, the National Intelligence Security Service (NISS) created propaganda to pin the unrest on rebels from Darfur.
Darfur is a region in the west of Sudan which has been ravaged by conflict since 2003.
On 29 December of last year a press conference was held in Khartoum. A government information minister claimed to have exposed a "rebel cell" that was stoking the protests and planning violence. Sudanese state TV channels broadcast claims that the security services had apprehended members of this "cell", and the videos were also posted to government-run pages on Facebook.
The videos showed young black men, looking meek and resigned, confessing that they were part of the Sudan Liberation Movement, a militant Darfuri group led by rebel leader Abdel Wahid el-Nour.
The students in the videos declared that they had attempted to incite violence and that they had carried weapons to protests.
But according to John, who knows three of the men who confessed in the videos, and several other sources BBC Arabic's investigations team spoke to, the confessions were completely made up - beaten out of the students with torture.

What happened to John?

Despite being tortured, John never gave the authorities a false confession. He was released without being charged after three months in detention.
"When I was released, the officers came and asked for forgiveness. They told me: 'We were just doing what we were told to do.' I told them: 'I'm innocent, you came and raided my house, detained and tortured me for no reason. I don't forgive any of you.'"
All of the students in the confession videos were released without charge, indicating that the security services had little hard evidence against them. The Darfur Bar Association has called for the release of Darfuris who still remain in detention for political reasons.
Although John wasn't involved in the protests when he was arrested, he has since become an active participant, and the torture he was put through only made him more determined to oust the regime.
Omar al-Bashir and his security chief may have fallen, but his generals are still in control of the country, and protesters have vowed to continue sit-ins until they hand power over to a civilian government.
The Sudanese Embassy in London did not respond to a request for comment.
The false confession videos showed that the regime was trying to use social networks to further its own ends, but was outsmarted by ordinary Sudanese people on those platforms. Before he was ousted, Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir said: "The change of government is not through WhatsApp and Facebook, but through elections."

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