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Sudan renews press censorship: journalists
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Jul 6, 2010 - 8:43:43 AM

(AFP) – 4 hours ago

KHARTOUM — Sudan intelligence services on Tuesday imposed press censorship, which was lifted in September, six months ahead of a key referendum on independence for south Sudan, the country's association of journalists said.

"We have been notified by the intelligence services that the newspaper Al-Intibaha has been closed and that from today press censorship has once again been imposed," Mohiedinne Titawi, president of the Sudanese Union of Journalists, told AFP.

"The censorship will focus on the issue of the country's unity or separation and the security of south Sudan," he added.

Titawi's comments follow earlier reports by Sudanese journalists that the government halted the distribution of three newspapers considered critical of the authorities in south Sudan.

The three dailies, Al-Intibaha, Al-Tayyar and Al-Ahdath, which are all deemed critical in one way or another of the south Sudan authorities, were not available on the streets of the capital on Tuesday, according to journalists working on the publications.

President Omar al-Beshir had last September announced the lifting of press censorship, ending a system under which newspapers were screened by censors every night to purge sensitive articles before publication.

But newspapers were also informed of red lines that should not be crossed, including matters of national security and articles sensitive to public morality in the conservative Muslim-majority country.

Opposition and independent papers had complained that media censorship and repression had made a comeback in Sudan since Beshir's re-election in April.

In past weeks the authorities have shut an opposition newspaper, Rai al-Shaab, while intelligence services have visited several opposition and independent papers in Khartoum demanding that several articles be removed.

"At 12:30 am, the security services called the printers to order them not to distribute the first edition of the newspaper," Osman Mirghani, managing editor of Al-Tayyar, told AFP on Tuesday.

"They then went to the printers, read the newspaper and raised objections to an article concerning clashes between the (southern) Murle and Dinka tribes," he added.

"They said they did not want anything negative published in connection with the south Sudan government or the SPLM (the former southern rebels)."

The United States has voiced new criticism of Sudan for increased repression and a "deteriorating environment."

Southerners are to vote in a January 2011 referendum that could lead to the independence of south Sudan, which has vast and largely untapped natural resources, including oil.

The referendum is a central plank of a 2005 peace agreement that ended more than two decades of war between Sudan's north and south.