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 ministry of justice Saturday last lifted the suspension on Al-Sudani, allowing it to resume publication. The newspaper pledged not to report on the murder case of the former chief editor of Al-Wifaq newspaper, Mohammed Taha Mohamed Ahmed, and to abide by the prosecution’s decision to ban reports on the case, the Sudan Tribune reported.
The ministry of justice general prosecutor, Salaheddin Abu-Zaid, ordered the case to be returned to the prosecution for examination based on a request put forward to the ministry of justice by Al-Sudani’s legal advisor.
The paper’s editor-in-chief Mahjoub Erwa told Reuters on Monday that the newspaper had agreed not to write about the case of Mohammed Taha "until the court case begins. They say they don't want the investigation to be jeopardised. But the investigation has finished and other papers have reported on the number of accused and other details.”
A state prosecutor imposed an immediate ban on Al-Sudani which carried an article on January 31 discussing the murder of Taha in violation of an official ban on writing about the case. The prosecutor said the paper violated Article 39 of Sudan’s provisional constitution and provisions in the 2004 Press and Publication Act regarding harming "public interests and professional ethics" and "inciting religious and ethnic hatred."
The Al-Sudani article reported that those accused of the editor’s murder would stand trial next week. It described a visit by defence lawyers to 20 people held in connection with the killing in Kober jail in capital Khartoum, and said the attorneys were unable to visit two female defendants in another prison.
Masked gunmen had bundled Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, editor-in-chief of the private daily Al-Wifaq, into a car outside his home in east Khartoum late September 5, 2006. Police found his severed head next to his body today in the south of the capital. His hands and feet were bound. Mohammed Taha had previously angered Islamists by running an article about the Prophet Mohammed. He had also written critically about the political opposition and armed groups in Sudan’s western Darfur region, according to press reports. No group has claimed responsibility for the killing.
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 and quickly became a popular independent daily. The newspaper, which also publishes to a wide audience in the Gulf and Saudi Arabia, has a readership of about 100,000.
Court cases and censorship have been on the rise in Sudan in recent months, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). On December 26, a criminal court in the capital, Khartoum, ordered Zuhayr al-Sarraj, former columnist for the private daily Al-Sahafa, and Noureddin Madani, the newspaper’s former editor, to pay a fine of 5 million (US$2,500) and 2 million (US$950) Sudanese pounds respectively or serve a jail sentence.
