El Hayat correspondent released in Sudan’s capital

The National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) released the Sudanese correspondent for London-based Arabic newspaper El Hayat in Khartoum on Wednesday. El Nur Ahmed El Nur, also working for the El Taghyeer news website, was released late in the evening, his brother told Agence France Presse. He said that El Nur was in good health. The Sudanese Journalists’ Union stated that El Nur was set free after efforts exerted by the Union. El Nur was held by security agents at the office of El Hayat in downtown Khartoum on 23 October, for reporting about a merge of the National Electricity Corporation (NEC) with other electricity companies.  He was targeted earlier by the NISS, in April 2013, when he was forced to resign as editor-in-chief of El Sahafa daily newspaper.On Monday, some 100 journalists had protested El Nur’s detention in front of the National Press and Publications Council in Khartoum. They submitted a memorandum to the Council’s director, Ali Shumu, in which they not only condemned El Nur’s detention, but also denounced the continuous interventions by the NISS in the newspapers’ publication policies, and the repeated confiscations of print-runs. Sudan ranks 172 out of 180 in the Reporters Without Borders 2014 World Press Freedom Index. File photo: El Nur Ahmed El Nur Related:Protest against detention of El Hayat journalist in Sudan’s capital (27 October 2014) ‘Political detainees in Sudan should be released immediately’: activists (27 October 2014) Sudan security detains journalist in Khartoum (24 October 2014) Sudanese journalist tortured, beaten in two-day interrogation (2 October 2014)