Harsh censorship pushes Sudanese paper to cancel this week edition
April 16, 2009 (KHARTOUM) – Harsh press censorship has pushed Sudanese editors of Al-Midan newspaper to decide to not print their weekly edition on Wednesday.
Ajras Al-Hurriya, a pro Sudan people’s Liberation Movement daily had been banned last week for publishing articles on the press freedom and the coverage of a press conference by the SPLM secretary.
The daily newspaper denounced the abusive censorship and said it had been targeted by the security service because the coverage of Pagan Amum press conference was similar to what other dailies published.
On Tuesday April 14 Al Midan, which a pro-Sudanese Communist Party weekly was also ordered by the security service to not not publish some 17 articles from Wednesday edition. Al-Midan had already been censored this month.
The censored items included the editorial, stories of Darfur and opinion articles dealing with the draft of press law.
To protest this selective censorship Al-Midan decided to not print this week issue.
Reporters Without Borders condemned today the pre-publication censorship of the two newspapers and urged the government to stop the press censorship.
The new press bill has been extensively criticized and is considered by the journalists as more restrictive to the press freedom than 2004 in force law. The draft law establishes put the press council under the direct control of the presidency which appoints eight of its 21 members and supervises its budget.
Four years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which ensures the press freedom the current press law is not yet upgraded to match with the new interim constitution of July 2005.
(ST)