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Sudanese woman in iconic protest image reports getting death threats
Sudanese demonstrators chant slogans as they protest against the army's announcement that President Omar al-Bashir would be replaced by a military-led transitional council, in Khartoum, Sudan, April 11, 2019. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Stringer
By Ellen Wulfhorst
12/04/2019
NEW YORK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A woman who has come to symbolize protests in Sudan after being photographed chanting atop a car during protests against President Omar al-Bashir said on Thursday she has gotten death threats since her image went viral.
Clad in white, Alaa Salah can be seen poised above the crowds in Khartoum, where demonstrators gathered to demand the military hand over power to civilians.
The ouster on Thursday of Bashir, 75, followed months of protests against his rule.
"I wanted to get on the car and speak to the people," Salah, 22, an engineering and architecture student at Sudan International University, said on Twitter.
"We need international support, for people to be aware of what's happening and to understand our demands."
She praised the role of Sudanese women, many of whom have taken to the streets in protest.
"You cannot have a revolution without women. You cannot have democracy without women," she tweeted. "We believed we could, so we did."
Calling herself "very proud to take part in this revolution," she said her life has been threatened since her picture and video went viral on social media.
"I will not bow down. My voice can not be suppressed," she tweeted, adding that she would hold Bashir responsible "if anything happens to me."
Bashir has been indicted by the International Criminal Court in The Hague and faces an arrest warrant over allegations of genocide in Sudan's Darfur region during an insurgency that began in 2003 and led to the death of an estimated 300,000 people.
He denies the allegations.
(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst and Kate Ryan, Editing by Jason Fields)
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