Sudanese security suspends sports newspaper
June 26, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) on Sunday suspended indefinitely al-Asyad sports newspaper, reported the Journalists for Human Rights (JHR).
NISS used to confiscate the daily political newspapers but it rarely takes similar measures against sports newspapers.
Recently NISS lifted pre-censorship but tends to punish newspapers that cross red-lines by confiscating their print runs causing financial and moral damages.
Journalistic sources told JHR that the newspaper was suspended after publishing a story criticizing Khartoum State Governor Gen. Abdel-Rahim Mohamed Hussein.
Last Monday, the newspaper threatened to reveal corruption in connection with the collapse of the al-Rabat University building while Hussein was the minister of interior in February 2005.
Khartoum State governor has recently pledged to financially support Al-Marikh, the traditional rivals Al-Hilal.
In a related development, JHR said that NISS has confiscated on Wednesday the print runs of Al-Intibaha newspaper without giving any explanation.
Journalistic sources said that on Thursday Al-Intibaha claimed that it was not able to come out due to a technical problem in the printing house.
The source said the newspaper hided the confiscation of Thursday issue due to the embarrassment felt by the paper’s Editor-in-Chief Sadiq al-Rizaigui who is also the Chairman of Union of Journalists.
(ST)