Sudan journos on hunger strike

2008-11-04 14:30

Khartoum - Sudanese journalists on Tuesday launched a mass hunger strike and three independent newspapers stopped work for three days in the country's biggest organised media protest against draconian censorship.

About 200 to 300 journalists began a 24-hour hunger strike and the Ajras al-Hurriya, al-Maidan and Rayal al-Shab dailies ceased work for three days, saying they could no longer accept government meddling over editorial content.

"We are going to stop for three days as a start. We are going on a food strike for a minimum of 24 hours," said Salah Ahmed Alkagam, head of the board of directors of Ajras al-Hurriya.

"We are going to protest against this sad practice against freedoms. We just want our constitutional rights," he added.

Sudan's interim constitution, which is supposed to guide the country through a six-year phased implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of civil war, upholds freedom of the press and expression.

But laws guaranteeing press freedom have yet to be passed in parliament and censorship is practiced daily. Officers from the country's powerful security apparatus inspect the editions of every newspaper nightly.

Editors who refuse to remove articles deemed offensive risk their publications being banned outright or confiscated from distribution offices.

Journalists say security officers ban daily articles, particularly those related to the conflict in Darfur, corruption and human rights.

Alkagam said the 95 people working for Ajras al-Hurriya would be going on the hunger strike, joined by more than 40 staff from Rayal Al-Shab and another 22 from al-Maidan newspaper, as well as journalists from other papers.

Two other reporters on strike said 250 to 300 people were refusing food.

Security on Sunday arrested a journalist from pro-government newspaper Al-Intibaha for publishing an article about a mysterious fever that allegedly broke out in Western Kordofan, his colleagues and wife said.

Noor Ahmed said that her husband, Salah Bab Alah, was arrested with his editor in chief, who has since been released, but on Tuesday security officers told her to bring some of his clothes to the detention centre.

- AFP