Sudan: Three independent newspapers stopped from printing

(SomaliNet) In what critics say violates the Sudan’s constitution, Sudanese security authorities stopped three independent newspapers from printing on Tuesday, stepping up a censorship campaign.

Sudan eased press censorship after a constitution put in place at the end of a two-decade civil war between the north and south in 2005 guaranteed freedom of the press.

But sporadic censorship of the dailies is reinstated at politically sensitive times.

\"Today at about 0215 (2315 GMT) security officials told the printing press not to print our paper,\" Murtada al-Ghali, editor-in-chief of the paper Freedom Belt, said.

Journalists said security officials had been visiting the newspapers at night to take out what they deemed as sensitive material, but this week they had told them instead to bring copies to the security offices before printing.

\"We refused. We said we cannot take our papers there and bring them back and work this way,\" Ghali said. Because of this, Freedom Belt, the independent al-Ayaam and the opposition al-Rai al-Shaab were all prevented from printing on Tuesday, Ghali and and other journalists said.

Ghali said other papers which did not take their copies to security offices were allowed to print on Tuesday.

Security officials were not immediately available to comment.
Where as Sudan\'s radio and television are state controlled, privately-owned newspapers are relatively free.

Freedom Belt is part owned by members of the former southern rebel Sudan People\'s Liberation Movement (SPLM), who signed a 2005 peace deal with the dominant northern National Congress Party. Its charter asserts the paper\'s independence.

But the road to peace has been difficult and created distrust between the partners, culminating in the SPLM withdrawing from the coalition government last year in protest at what they say was an unequal partnership.

Sudan\'s north-south civil war claimed some 2 million lives and drove more than 4 million from their homes.

The 2005 deal does not cover a separate newer rebellion in Sudan\'s remote western Darfur region.-Reuters