(RSF/IFEX) – On 16 July 2002, RSF denounced the censoring of the 13 July issue of the independent Arabic-language daily “Al-Horreya” (“Freedom”) and called on the Sudanese government to cease such “arbitrary persecution” of the country’s independent newspapers. “This measure demonstrates that despite the president’s ending of prior censorship last December, official pressure on the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 16 July 2002, RSF denounced the censoring of the 13 July issue of the independent Arabic-language daily “Al-Horreya” (“Freedom”) and called on the Sudanese government to cease such “arbitrary persecution” of the country’s independent newspapers.
“This measure demonstrates that despite the president’s ending of prior censorship last December, official pressure on the independent media continues,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said in a letter to Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohamed Husein.
According to publisher Al-Haj Warraq, security officials went to the newspaper’s printing works in Khartoum on the night of 12 to 13 July and seized the already-printed front and back pages of the next day’s issue. They did not explain why, but said they would return them as soon as they had looked at them. However, they had not returned by 8:00 a.m. (local time) the next morning, so the newspaper was not published that day.
The seizure is thought to have been prompted by the expected publication in the issue of a critical article about recent divisions within the main northern opposition party, El Umma. On 12 July, a faction led by Mubarak al-Fadil al-Mahdi decided to ally itself with the government.
“Al-Horreya” was founded in September 2001. Some of Sudan’s most prominent journalists work for the daily, including Amal Abbas, former editor of “Al-Rai al-Akhar”, who was sentenced in February 2001 to three months’ imprisonment or a fine of 1.5 million dinars (approx. US$5,800; 5,750 euros) for publishing an article accusing the authorities of embezzling public funds. She was unable to pay the fine and served her sentence at Khartoum’s Omdurman Prison (see IFEX alerts of 1 March and 5 February 2001).
