(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the police’s 29 July 2003 confiscation of all copies of the independent daily “As Sahafa”. The organisation has also called for the release of provincial reporter Youssef Al Bashir Musa, who wrote the story that appears to have prompted the punitive seizure of the newspaper. “We demand Youssef Al Bashir […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF has condemned the police’s 29 July 2003 confiscation of all copies of the independent daily “As Sahafa”. The organisation has also called for the release of provincial reporter Youssef Al Bashir Musa, who wrote the story that appears to have prompted the punitive seizure of the newspaper.
“We demand Youssef Al Bashir Musa’s immediate release because of the threats to his safety, especially when one considers that he was previously tortured by the police,” RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard said.
In a report published in “As Sahafa” on 28 July, Musa wrote that more than 10 students heading to a military training camp had been killed in a bus crash on the road from Al-Fashir to Nyala, in the western province of Darfur. The authorities denied the report the same day and arrested Musa in Nyala, where he is based. The next day, they seized all 20,000 copies of the newspaper after they were printed.
The confiscation may also have been linked to another report published in “As Sahafa” that same day, concerning mediation efforts between the national government in Khartoum and rebels in the west of the country. “As Sahafa” editor-in-chief Adil Albaz said the authorities had imposed a news blackout about the mediation efforts.
Musa, who has lost a leg, was previously arrested on 3 May after his newspaper ran a report he wrote about clashes in the Darfur region (see IFEX alert of 16 May 2003). While in detention, he was beaten several times, in the course of which he was hit with a club on the sole of his remaining foot. He was finally released on 25 May.
