{{Khartoum government has freed the first seven political prisoners under a presidential amnesty, party officials have said.}}<\/p>\n
The prisoners were freed on Tuesday a day after President Omar al-Bashir said all political prisoners would be released.<\/p>\n
The six men and a woman are all members of the country’s opposition political alliance, said Farouk Abu Issa, who heads the coalition of more than 20 parties.<\/p>\n
Most had been held for nearly three months.<\/p>\n
“It is a step forward but we are waiting for many other steps,” Issa told the AFP news agency.<\/p>\n
He said “hundreds” of prisoners across the country, including in South Kordofan and Blue Nile states where rebels have been fighting government forces for almost two years, were still in detention.<\/p>\n
The six men walked free to the embrace of relatives waiting outside Kober Prison in the capital, Khartoum, reporters said. <\/p>\n
The woman was released at a different location.<\/p>\n
Issa accused authorities of holding some of the prisoners in solitary confinement, while three had been kept at security service detention centres, he said.<\/p>\n
In a speech opening a new session of parliament on Monday, al-Bashir said all political prisoners would be freed as the government seeks a broad political dialogue, a move welcomed by the opposition as tensions ease with South Sudan.<\/p>\n
“We confirm we will continue our communication with all political and social powers without excluding anyone, including those who are armed, for a national dialogue which will bring a solution to all the issues,” Bashir said.<\/p>\n
One of the liberated prisoners, Youssif al-Koda who heads the Islamic Centrist Party, told reporters he is ready for Bashir’s dialogue if it is “serious.”<\/p>\n
“I didn’t do anything against the constitution,” Koda said through a translator.<\/p>\n
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