Sudan security blocks press conference by banned groups
December 13, 2015 (KHARTOUM) – Sudanese security authorities on Sunday prevented several civil societies groups and centres from holding a press conference to denounce a ban on their cultural activities .
The groups including the Sudanese Studies Centre , Bait Alfunoon(Arts Home) and Ali al-Zain Cultural Centre , were planning to hold a press conference under the theme: “Three years of unjust closure”.
The aim of the press conference was to “remind the public about the particulars of the closure decision and the steps so far taken to re-register the groups and resume activity,” the press conference organizers said.
According to an official source of Tayba Press Centre , where the press conference was supposed to held, a security officer contacted the centre and told them not to host the press conference , because the organizers did not obtain the necessary permit.
While the banned cultural centres condemned what they called “the repressive procedure by the security.’’
In a joint press statement they issued, the groups further called for another press conference on Wednesday to be held at the premises of the opposition National Umma Party(NUP).
The centres reaffirmed their ”adherence to their constitutional rights of free expression and indiscrimination.”. They said they were” resolved to organize a number of events to explain the current cultural state of affairs in the country and the government legislations and practices that shackle cultural and artistic activity.’’
The Sudanese government in December 2012 shut down the Sudanese Studies Centre , founded by Sudanese thinker Haydar Ibrahim Ali , under the accusation that he was receiving finance from foreign circles seeking to topple the regime.
The Centre was first established in Cairo in 1992 ” to publish intellectual contributions of democratic writers because it became was impossible to publish them after the 1989 military coup in Sudan.
The centre then moved in 2000to Khartoum where it used to organize intellectual symposia and published the magazine “ Kitabat Sudaniyya (Sudanese Writings.)
Bait al-Funoon was shut down in November 2013 . It was founded by Tarig al-Aamin in July 2008 and continued to organize cultural and artistic events , becoming a Mecca of cultural , artistic and social interaction for Sudanese.
In April 2014 the security closed the Ali al-Zain Centre in Khartoum North and suspended its activities indefinitely.
A fierce campaign had targeted a number of Sudanese cultural centres since 2012, either by shutting them down or by freezing their activity , a move that was seen as a backing from freedoms and rights.
The lasted of such government measures was in last January when the Ministry of Culture cancelled the registration of the Sudanese Writers Union .
(ST)