Sudan 1st VP says press freedom the best in region

July 2, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – The Sudanese 1st Vice President Bakri Hassan Saleh asserted that press freedoms in the country are better than those in the region and other parts of the world but nonetheless expressed the government’s readiness to take advanced steps towards allowing more freedoms.

But Saleh who addressed the annual Ramadan breakfast for Sudanese Journalists Union (SJU) on Thursday underscored the role played by the press in exposing the shortcomings of the state so that the government is made aware of it.

He pledged to enforce the recommendations of the second national media conference and called on news organizations to become stronger and more established institutions.

The Sudanese official recalled one of the recommendations which called for encouraging the state to integrate newspapers.

“We are ready to step in and help so that we end up having large and capable institutions because we want newspapers to develop and educate the citizen and satisfy him”.

Saleh’s remarks come amid one of the worst crackdown on newspapers by Sudanese authorities in decades.

This week, the National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) seized print runs of three newspapers for stories related to recent wave of recruitment of Sudanese students by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

In late May, the NISS confiscated 10 newspapers from the printing press without giving reasons. In a similar move last February, it also seized print runs of 14 newspapers.

Journalists say that NISS uses seizures of print copies of newspapers, not only to censor the media but also to weaken them economically.

This week, the National Press & Publication Council suspended the ‘Elaph’ weekly which specializes in economic reports citing administrative deficiencies.

(ST)