Sudan protesters remain defiant after deadly army crackdown

Thousands of Sudanese pro-democracy protesters remained defiant of the country's military rulers Tuesday, a day after security forces violently cleared away their main sit-in site in the capital. Protest organisers say 35 people died in the crackdown.

Activists turned prayers marking the Eid al-Fitr holiday into political protests, with thousands gathering outside mosques in several neighbourhoods around Khartoum and its twin city, Omdurman, across the Nile River.

After prostrating in prayer, some worshippers chanted, "Freedom, peace, justice and civilian government are the people's choice," according to videos posted online.

"We have no choice but to continue our protests and civil disobedience until the fall of the military council," said Mohammed Yousef al-Mustafa, a spokesman for the Sudanese Professionals Association, which has spearheaded the protests.

The bloody dispersal of the sit-in Monday poses a new challenge to the protest movement, which now aims to show it can keep up pressure in the streets after its central rallying point was wiped out.

The movement succeeded in forcing the military in April to remove Sudan's longtime strongman, Omar al-Bashir. It then kept its sit-in going, demanding the generals who took power hand over authority to civilians.

Security forces in the city centre barred access to the former site of the sit-in outside the military's headquarters, scene of Monday's violence. But an Associated Press journalist saw protesters building low barricades of stones and metal fencing on some streets in suburbs of Khartoum.

Even the date of Eid al-Fitr a holiday marking the end of the Muslim holy month of fasting, Ramadan became a centre of contention. The date changes each year by the lunar calendar and is determined by sightings of the new moon.

The military announced it would begin Wednesday. But protest leaders said astronomers at Khartoum University had determined that Tuesday was the first day of the holiday and called on supporters to come out to "pray for the martyrs."