The National Congress Party (NCP) set up the body after comments by former presidential adviser Ghazi Salahuddin Atabani and 30 other prominent party reformers.
In a memorandum to President Omar al-Bashir
Head of the National Congress Party. He came to power in 1989 when he, as a brigadier in the Sudanese army, led a group of officers in a bloodless military coup that ousted the government of Prime Minister Sadiq al-Mahdi and eventually appointed himself president-for-life. He has fallen out with his Islamic mentor, Hasan al-Turabi, tried to impose shariah on the Christian and animist south, resulting in its secessesion, and attempted to
ArabizeDarfur by unleashing the barbaric Janjaweed on it. Sudan's potential prosperity has been pissed away in warfare that has left as many as 400,000 people dead and 2.5 million displaced. Omar has been indicted for genocide by the International Criminal Court but nothing is expected to come of it.
, they said the government's response to late-September demonstrations over fuel price hikes betrayed the regime's Islamic foundations.
The reformers made a series of recommendations, including for an independent probe of the shooting of civilians during the protests, and for a reversal of the price increases.
But they instead found themselves under investigation by the party.
Atabani's membership and that of two other signatories will be revoked if a 400-member party council gives final approval, said Ahmed Ibrahim al-Tahir, who led the internal probe.
He said six others who signed the memorandum have been suspended from party activities for one year.
Atabani, a member of parliament, told AFP on Monday that his party membership had already been suspended but the reformers would not back down.
He said the NCP was spending too much time on "this minor internal issue at a time when the country is on the verge of collapse."
Thousands of people, many of them Khartoum-area poor, erupted into the streets when the government cut fuel subsidies, forcing retail prices up by more than 60 percent.
Dozens were killed.