Sudan confiscates daily newspaper, local group says
September 8, 2011 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese security authorities on Thursday blocked the publication of the privately owned daily Al-Sahafah, according to a local lobby group.
SJN said that these practices contravene the freedom of press enshrined in the country’s constitution and “debunks the lack of professionalism on the side of the NISS and its total alignment with the ruling party.”
Confiscation of privately owned and independent newspapers by the NISS in Sudan has of late increased dramatically as the country plunged into a new episode of war in the border states of Blue Nile and South Kordofan against forces previously aligned with the newly established Republic of South Sudan.
In the run-up to South Sudan’s declaration of independence on 9 July, Sudan revoked the licenses of six newspapers on the pretext that their shareholders include southerners.
Over the last two month, Sudan confiscated the copies of at least four papers after they were printed, inflicting heavy financial damages on them.
A number of Sudanese journalists have recently faced legal proceedings and two of them were sent to jail for writing against the alleged rape of an anti-government female activist by security agents.
Reporters Without Borders, an international organization, in June slammed “the disgraceful way the [Sudanese] authorities are harassing and prosecuting journalists in Khartoum and the north of the country in an attempt to silence them and stop embarrassing revelations about human rights violation by the security forces”
Another press-freedom watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), said that Sudanese authorities continue to “aggressively” target individual journalists and publications through “contrived legal proceedings, politicized criminal charges, and confiscations”.
Results published as part of UNESCO 2011 World Press Freedom Day, Sudan ranks as 40 out of 48 in Sub-Saharan Africa for press freedom. Amnesty International described Sudan as a place where freedom of speech is being “openly violated”
(ST)