TASIS Women’s Group for Advocacy and Women’s Empowerment
Statement Regarding the Remarks Made by Criminal Ahmed Haroun About Sudanese Women
“A Message to Ahmed Haroun, the criminal on the run from justice and former head of the dissolved National Congress Party: ‘Women are not guests in their own history… nor are they mere window dressing in the institutions of the remnants of the defunct National Congress Party regime.’”
The remarks made by the fugitive criminal Ahmed Haroun, chairman of the dissolved National Congress Party, on the so-called “Sudan Podcast” program, is a statement that belittles the capabilities of Sudanese women and mocks their appearance, experiences, and knowledge. It is not merely a passing opinion in a televised debate broadcast to elevate criminals and showcase their ugly faces, but rather an expression of an intellectual, political, and ideological framework that has consistently viewed Sudanese women as subordinate beings, entitled to enter the public sphere only with the permission of a patriarchal authority that grants them the legitimacy to participate and revokes it whenever it pleases—and that authority is none other than the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood.
We, at the Tasis Women’s Group for Advocacy and Women’s Empowerment, reject the language used by the fugitive criminal Ahmed Haroun when he said: “You can’t just set up a ‘security reform’ workshop and bring in young women in the prime of their lives who have no experience, are inexperienced, and don’t know the first thing about it,” We categorically reject this language and consider it an extension of the culture of exclusion and paternalism against which Sudanese women have paid a heavy price for resisting.
Who, Ahmed Haroun, gave you the authority to hand out certificates of competence to women? And who authorized you to make your political experience—or that of your dissolved party, which destroyed the country and impoverished it—the sole criterion for measuring women’s competence and knowledge?
Sudanese women are not apprentices in the school of the criminal National Congress Party, nor are they trainees awaiting a certificate of recognition from the guardians of patriarchal gateways. If you had any sense of honor or zeal for the homeland, you would have been better off guarding Sudan’s northern borders against Egyptian colonialism and the killing of the Dahaba—but such hopes are in vain for those who choose to live in humiliation.
The women you describe as inexperienced, Ahmed Haroun, are themselves an extension of a long history of struggle, work, knowledge, and resistance. Women who confronted colonialism, participated in building the national movement, fought against dictatorships, stood at the forefront of the glorious December Revolution, and made sacrifices in the face of oppression, violence, and wars. Women who did not wait for someone to grant them a seat at the table of history, but rather seized their right to have a seat and to make decisions.
Perhaps we should remind you, Ahmed Haroun, that the feminist movement did not arise from a male-granted privilege, nor did it seek permission from the institutions that monopolized power and knowledge in the name of religion. From the very first women who confronted laws of discrimination and deprivation, through the struggles of Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft, to Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf, and Angela Davis, the feminist movement has continued to dismantle the privilege of men who speak in the name of humanity while excluding half of it.
Virginia Woolf said that a woman needs a room of her own, but we in Sudan demand more than just a room; we demand our right to a place in the state, to peace, to security, to decision-making, and to the rebuilding of institutions destroyed by wars and patriarchal tyranny—and we need the law to be enforced against fugitives like you.
As for the makeup you have made a subject of contempt, we say to you: women’s bodies are not a arena for moral scrutiny; their clothing is not a qualification for employment; and their appearance does not detract from their intellect or their right to political and professional participation—for competence is not measured by the length of a dress or by a headscarf.
We, at the Women’s Foundation for Advocacy and Empowerment, draw attention to the glaring contradiction between the exclusionary rhetoric of the criminal Ahmed Haroun and the principles established by Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace, and Security, which affirmed the importance of women’s full and active participation in conflict prevention, resolution, and peacebuilding.
Women are not merely recipients of protection or victims awaiting relief; rather, they have an inherent right to participate in peacemaking, shape the future of their communities, reject the militarization of society, protect civilians, and ensure unimpeded access to humanitarian aid.
We, the Women’s Founding Group for Advocacy and Empowerment, reject the use of women as a propaganda front for the Port Sudan authorities or as a tool to silence voices opposing the war. nor do we accept that feminism be reduced to selective silence on the part of women’s groups that support the Sudanese army. Feminism that fails to defend women’s dignity when they are subjected to contempt and humiliation loses its capacity to serve as a movement for liberation and equality, and it loses its credibility.
We, the women of the Ta’asus Group for Women’s Advocacy and Empowerment, address this message to women’s groups and organizations: “Silence in the face of the rhetoric of the criminal Ahmed Haroun, head of the dissolved National Congress Party, who speaks in the name of the Sudanese peoples through their glorious revolution, undermines women’s agency. Your silence is a sharp stab in the side of justice and equality—not a neutral stance in this battle over false dignity.
Women’s solidarity should not be subject to partisan alignments or narrow political and regional calculations, for women’s dignity is not a seasonal issue, and their rights are indivisible regardless of the speaker’s identity or political stance.
And you, Ahmed Haroun, given that you are one of the most prominent political figures associated with the Salvation regime, and given that you are wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges related to crimes of genocide in Darfur, Sudanese and global public opinion has every right to demand that you address the major questions regarding justice, accountability, and political and humanitarian responsibility before you set yourself up as a judge over women’s experiences and their capabilities. Do not assume the role of a teacher who assigns grades of maturity to women while questions of justice and accountability remain unresolved in your own case.
Sunday, November 8, 2026 TASIS Women’s Group for Advocacy and Women’s Empowerment
