Sudan’s white-coated uprising

The Documentary Podcast

BBC

Society & Culture, Documentary, Personal Journals

4.3 • 2.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2019

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Sudan’s doctors on the frontline. When ongoing street protests finally pushed Sudan’s repressive president from power last month, it was the country’s doctors many thanked. Ever since Omar al-Bashir’s successful coup in 1989 they had defied him. Staging strikes, organising demonstrations, and campaigning for human rights, the country’s white-coated men and women opposed all he stood for. In the last few months alone scores of them were jailed, beaten, tortured and some deliberately gunned down. Through the eyes of a murdered medic’s family, Mike Thomson looks at the extraordinary role these unlikely revolutionaries have played in Sudan’s uprising.

Produced by Bob Howard

(Image:Sudanese doctors protesting in Khartoum. Credit: Mike Thomson/BBC)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Thank you for downloading this program broadcast by the BBC.
0:03.6	I'm Mike Thompson and over the next half hour I'll be investigating the leading role played
0:08.5	by doctors in toppling Sudan's President Omar al-Bishir.
0:14.0	He was just trying to help an injured protester and he came out putting his hand up to the police,
0:23.6	individuals telling him, I'm a doctor, we need to help someone in.
0:28.6	He said, you're a doctor.
0:30.4	Okay, you are the people we're looking for and he took two steps back and he aimed his
0:36.6	gun and he just shot him so instead of a doctor being someone that the
0:42.3	security forces would ensure wasn't injured, they targeted him.
0:46.0	Yes, and especially they said it. Out loud, you're a doctor, you are the people who are looking for.
0:52.0	And he took two steps back and then he fired at her.
0:58.0	Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service with me Mike Thompson in the Sudanese capital Khartoum. I'm here to investigate
1:06.3	the extraordinary role played by doctors in the current uprising that swept former
1:11.7	President Omar al-Bishir from power.
1:15.0	Though medics weren't the only casualties of his brutal 30-year rule.
1:20.0	During that time, thousands of political prisoners were jailed and tortured
1:24.8	and charges of genocide brought against al-Bishir for atrocities in the country's Darfur region.
1:37.5	Now he's in jail and masses of joyous protesters who were once too frightened to criticize his regime fill the streets. This is supposed to be a uprising or revolution,
1:49.0	but it's really more like a carnival.
1:51.0	I'm surrounded by tens of thousands of joyful people, maybe even
1:57.0	hundreds of thousands, shouting, chanting, singing and raving flags. It's just like the euphoric end of a world war. That's really how it feels. It too has its heroes.
2:10.0	Some of whom risked their lives to help make all what I'm seeing now possible.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.