(RSF/IFEX) – On 2 October 2001, the National Press and Publications Council ordered a twenty-four hour ban on the two dailies “Alwan” and “Al Ousboue”. The decision was implemented on 3 October. In a letter to Minister of Justice Ali M Osman Yasin, RSF protested the ban. “Censorship has been intensifying in the past few […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 2 October 2001, the National Press and Publications Council ordered a twenty-four hour ban on the two dailies “Alwan” and “Al Ousboue”. The decision was implemented on 3 October.
In a letter to Minister of Justice Ali M Osman Yasin, RSF protested the ban. “Censorship has been intensifying in the past few weeks, and that is a concern for us,” said Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. “We ask that you stop applying such measures,” he added.
The National Press and Publications Council, a body which is directly accountable to the president, has full powers to suspend or ban newspapers or fine publishers. On 2 October, it decided to ban the dailies “Alwan” and “Al Ousboue” for twenty-four hours. The reason for the ban was “publication of defamatory articles”.
On 11 September, the countryâs only English-language daily, “The Khartoum Monitor”, was banned for three days. This followed the publication of articles in August and September which were judged to be “harmful” to relations between the country’s north and south regions, which have been waging a civil war since 1983 (see IFEX alert of 12 September 2001).
