Sudanese security confiscates Al-Saiha newspaper

April 17, 2016 (KHARTOUM) – Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Services (NISS) on Sunday dawn seized print runs of Al-Saiha daily newspaper from the printing house without giving reasons.

According to the Sudanese non-governmental Journalists for Human Rights (JHR) network, NISS agents seized copies of Al-Saiha during printing before they ordered the printing house administration to stop running the remaining copies of the newspaper.

Last week, NISS confiscated copies of Al-Taghyeer newspaper for two days in a row without stating any reasons.

On 11 April, NISS asked to meet the editorial board of Al-Saiha in order to discuss the editorial policy of the newspaper however the meeting did not materialize.

Al-Saiha was launched in March 2014 by the chairman of the Just Peace Forum (JPF) party and president Omer Hassan al-Bashir’s maternal uncle, al-Tayeb Mustafa.

The NISS routinely confiscates newspapers either to prevent circulation of certain stories or to punish them retroactively on previous issues.

It accuses the newspapers of crossing the red lines through publishing reports which adversely impact the national security.

In February 2015, NISS seized entire print runs of 14 newspapers in one day without stating the reasons for its decision.

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

(ST)