Sudanese paper blocked over Chad columns

February 14, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Sudanese security agents prevented an opposition newspaper from being published on Thursday after it tried to print articles accusing the government of backing rebels in neighbouring Chad, journalists said.

Security officials arrived at the printing press publishing al-Rai al-Shaab in the early hours of Thursday morning, said Ashraf Mohamed, from the daily.

“They said we must cut two columns. Then they said the paper could not be printed,” said Mohamed.

“It was because the columns were talking about the problems in Chad … They said that the (Sudanese) government was participating in the trouble by supporting the rebels.”

Chad accused Sudan of backing rebels who stormed the Chadian capital N’Djamena early February in a bid to topple President Idriss Deby. Sudan, which denies the charge, accuses Chad of funding rebels inside the Sudanese region of Darfur.

Sudan’s media regulator, the National Press Council, declined to comment on the reported blockage of Al-Rai al-Shaab on Thursday and no one was immediately available for comment from Sudan’s security services.

Al-Rai al-Shaab, which is linked to the opposition Popular Congress Party led by Hassan al-Turabi, did not appear on Khartoum newsstands on Thursday morning.

Sudan eased press censorship after a new constitution put in place at the end of Sudan’s north-south civil war in 2005 guaranteed freedom of the press.

But there have been regular reports of newspapers coming under pressure over sensitive stories.

The Citizen newspaper, based in Sudan’s southern capital Juba, said it had been temporarily shut down ten times, most recently over articles that the National Press Council said insulted Sudan’s president.

Sudanese authorities confiscated 17,000 copies of al-Rai al-Shaab in August for violating a ban on reporting about a thwarted plot to attack Western embassies in Khartoum.

(Reuters)