Sudan

Sudanese journalists have launched a mass hunger strike and three independent newspapers stopped work for three days in the country's biggest organised media protest against censorship. Over 150 journalists began a 24-hour hungerstrike and the Ajras al-Hurriya, Al-Maidan and Rayal al-Shab newspapers halted production, saying they could no longer accept government restrictions over editorial...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has condemned the methods being used by the Sudanese government to censor Khartoum-based newspapers. In the latest case early Monday, members of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)—the political wing of the former rebel group in the south that is now part of a unity government—participated in a raid on the privately-owned Arabic-language daily Ajras Al...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed concern over the detention of freelance journalist Al-Ghali Yahya Shegifat, who has been held incommunicado in an unknown location since May 14. Neither his family nor his lawyer has been able to contact him and the charges against him are unknown. "The way this journalist has been made to virtually disappear is illegal and outrageous," Paris-based RSF...

Press freedom organisaitons have deplored the censorship and harassment to which Sudan’s privately-owned media have been subjected since the start of the year. Arrests, summonses, threats and outright bans on certain news items — the campaign waged by the government against the independent press is reducing the space for free expression even more. “It should be an honour for Sudan to let the many...

Sudan has reimposed daily censorship of newspapers after they published reports accusing the government of backing Chadian rebels, Reuters reported Thursday. Journalists and local human rights activists criticised the move, which they said had begun nearly three weeks ago after rebels stormed the Chadian capital N'Djamena in a failed attempt to topple President Idriss Deby. Journalists said...

(RSF/IFEX) - Mahjoub Ourwa, the chairman of the independent Arabic-language daily "Al-Sudani", and Noureddine Medani, the newspaper's editor, were released on 29 November 2007 after spending 11 days in Omdurman prison, located north of Khartoum. The two journalists had been detained on 18 November for refusing to pay court-ordered fines of 10,000 Sudanese pounds (approx. 3,500 euros) each for...

The decapitated body of a Sudanese newspaper editor accused of insulting Islam was recovered Wednesday, a day after he was kidnapped by masked gunmen. MOURNERS ALL: Sudanese mourners carry the body of the chief editor of a Sudanese independent daily, Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, who provoked a furore by publishing an article denounced as blasphemous and was found dead a day after being abducted

Reporters Without Borders today condemned the censorship of six privately-owned Arabic-language dailies during the past five days in an attempt by the security forces to suppress reports about the arrests of eight alleged terrorists. “The vice-president announced the official lifting of censorship nearly a year ago,” the press freedom organisation said. “Now we regrettably see that this practice...

Sudanese authorities have lifted the ban on independent Arabic daily Al-Sudani imposed on it after the newspaper violated a decree not to report on the case of a murdered journalist, Reuters has reported. The Al- Sudani newspaper, one of the leading dailies in Sudan, has had many problems with the authorities. Erwa's paper was closed down in Sudan under emergency law in 1994. It reopened last year...

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the indefinite closure today of an independent Sudanese daily for publishing an article about the beheading of an editor last September. A state prosecutor imposed an immediate ban on the prominent Arabic-language Al-Sudani which carried an article on January 31 discussing the murder of Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the private daily...