Sudanese security forces intensify media crackdown
The increasing pressure, violence and prosecution faced by journalists at the hands of security forces represent a major threat to the future of press freedom in the country.
The Qatari media network Al Jazeera announced in a Jan. 16 statement that the Sudanese Ministry of Culture and Information had withdrawn the broadcast license of its channel Al Jazeera Live and revoked the accreditations of two of its journalists in Sudan for their allegedly “unprofessional” coverage of the country’s affairs. The ministry later stated, in a statement carried by the state news agency SUNA, that the decision didn’t affect other satellite channels of the group, and that it came after several warnings.
A few days earlier, on Jan. 12, the Sudanese Journalists Network (SJN), a local press freedom group, condemned the arrest of two photographers — Mohamed Khidir and Magdi Abdalah — who work with the Chinese news agency Xinhua. Both were forcibly taken to a military zone in Omdurman, the twin city of Khartoum, handcuffed in an isolated place and subjected to hours of interrogation after having their phones confiscated, the group stated.
