Sudan Freedom Walk Delivers Message to Congress

NEW YORK, Nov. 9, 2010 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Sudan Freedom Walk today announced a new initiative to bring attention to Sudan, as it approaches the most critical moment in its modern history. On January 9, 2011 the people of South Sudan are scheduled to vote for independence from the North. At the same time, the people of Abyei – an oil-rich border region – will vote on whether to remain a part of the North or return to the South, from which they were transferred by the British in 1905.

"There is a great danger of bloodshed in my country. American people and leaders can prevent it, and I will do all I can to keep Sudan on their agenda," said Sudan Freedom Walk's Co-Founder and an escaped slave Simon Deng. "Starting November 9th I will visit the offices of every congress person to ask them to support my people.  I want to make sure that if a war breaks out in Sudan, nobody can say he or she did not know," Deng added.

Simon, who has recently marched for 250 miles from New York to Washington, DC to raise awareness about Sudan, will conduct the walk barefoot in solidarity with oppressed Sudanese. During his visits Simon will also deliver a letter asking congress people to:

• Support John Kerry's Sudan Peace and Stability Act of 2010
• Join Simon at the press conference on November 18th
• Pressure the Obama administration to use all its leverage to bring lasting peace to Sudan

Sudan's indigenous African peoples have been historically marginalized by various Arab minority-ruling regimes. This marginalization intensified when the radical Islamist regime, led by indicted war criminal Omar Al-Bashir and an extremist cleric Hassan Al-Turabi, seized power in a military coup in 1989.

Deng explained: "For more than fifty years the tyrants in Khartoum tried to exterminate Sudan's African peoples. They did it in the South, the Nuba Mountains and in Darfur. They did it to Christians, traditionalists and even to their fellow Muslims."

The latest assault on the South (1983-2005) claimed over two million lives leaving four million homeless. The government in Khartoum and its allies indiscriminately bombed civilian populations, burned villages, manufactured famines, raped and enslaved thousands.

"South Sudanese will never go back to Arabization, Islamization, rape and slavery. Nothing will stop us from achieving freedom," he added.

Contact: Sasha Giller, American Anti-Slavery Group, [email protected], 617 959-4805

SOURCE Sudan Freedom Walk