Farouk Abu Issa

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Farouk Abu Issa (Arabic: فاروق أبو عيسى; 12 August 1933 – 12 April 2020)[1] was a Sudanese politician and the Chairman of the National Consensus Forces.[2]

Abu Issa attended Hantoub Secondary School and was involved in activism from a young age; he joined the Sudanese Communist Party in 1950.[3][4] His father was a member of the political party Ashiqqa' and supported peace between Sudan and Egypt.[3] Abu Issa graduated from Alexandria University with a degree in law in 1957 and subsequently joined the Egyptian Communist Party.[3]

He was Sudanese Foreign Minister under Jaafar Nimeiry from 1969 to 1971.[3] When the Sudanese Communist Party split from Nimeiry in 1970, Abu Issa withdrew from the party, though he continued to hold democratic sentiments.[3] In 1983, he was elected as the Secretary General of the Arab Lawyers Union; he held this position until 2003.[5][6] He fled to Egypt in 1989 after Omar al-Bashir overtook the government and stayed in exile until 2005 when the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed.[5] He became the chairman of the National Consensus Forces' general council and held this position until his death in 2020.[5]

In December 2014 he was arrested along with Amin Mekki Medani, held in Kobar Prison, and subsequently charged with undermining the constitutional system.[5][7] He was released from prison two and a half weeks later and taken to a hospital in Khartoum due to rapidly deteriorating health.[8]