Sudan: Employees of newspaper demand authorities to lift suspension 

Dozens of journalists and employees of a local newspaper demanded on Monday that the Justice Ministry in Sudan should lift the suspension order imposed on El-Sudani and allow it to resume publication.

Earlier this month, the Sudanese Anti-Corruption Committee seized the headquarters of Ashorooq and Teiba TV channels as well as El-Ray El-Aam and El-Sudani newspapers and confiscated their equipment. The move was part of what has been described as “a wider effort to seize assets from the former ruling party of former President Omar Al-Bashir.”

The employees of El-Sudani organised a sit-in in front of the Justice Ministry in the capital Khartoum. Protest banners denounced the authorities’ decision to control news outlets and stop their publication. The ministry should allow the newspaper to resume publication, they insisted, until all stages of litigation defined by the law and the constitution are completed.

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“The continued seizure of the newspaper and the suspension of its publication,” they explained, “represents severe psychological and professional harm, and controlling it for procedural pretexts is a blow to the principles of the revolution of which freedom and justice are two of the basic pillars.” The newspaper’s employees will be the first to respect the decision of the judiciary, whatever its nature, they added.

Earlier, El-Sudani’s chief editor, Diyaa Al-Din Bilal, challenged the Sudanese authorities to prove to the public that the newspaper was funded by the former ruling party.