Sudan security confiscates another newspaper over abduction of female activist
April 20, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) has seized copies of Al-Sudani daily newspaper on Monday for publishing a column on abduction of a female activist.
Kadouda, the daughter of the late communist figure, Farouk Kadouda, was forcibly taken from her car by a group of unidentified men in Sudan’s twin capital city of Omdurman on 12 April.
She was reportedly on her way to an opposition sit-in at the National Umma Party (NUP) headquarters that day.
Three days later, the female activist was found badly beaten at a street in Khartoum.
Kadouda’s family filed a criminal case, alleging she was kidnapped by the NISS, but the latter denied taking her into custody and said they had no record of her detention.
Editor-in-chief of Al-Sudani Dia al-Din Bilal wrote in his daily column that “had Sandra been detained by security authorities under any pretext, it would have been understood but filing the kidnapping incident against unknown persons is a dangerous matter”.
“If it were the daughter of any government official, [authorities] would have dealt with the situation differently,” he added.
According to journalists at Al-Sudani, NISS agents arrived at the printing press in the early hours of Monday morning and confiscated all printed copies without providing any explanation.
On Friday, al-Youm al-Tali editor Muzamil Abu al-Gasim’s wrote his daily column under the title “Who kidnapped Sandra?” in which he berated authorities over the circumstances of Kadouda’s abduction.
He demanded that the NISS and police reveal details of what he described as a “reprehensible crime”, adding that “the question of who kidnapped Sandra? does not tolerate the deafening silence [from the authorities]”.
Sudanese newspapers frequently complain of fierce clampdown carried out by NISS that include confiscation, suspension and pre-publication censorship.
In February, NISS seized entire print runs of 14 newspapers in one day without stating the reasons for its decision.
(ST)