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 has suspended indefinitely al-Asyad sports newspaper which supports the leading Sudanese football team al-Hilal ,” said a statement released by the local press freedom group.
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)