Investigative journalist barred from entering Sudan

Sudanese online news outlet Medameek reported later that day that the authorities sent Cox back to Turkey on the aeroplane he arrived on, refusing to allow him to enter the country.  

Cox’s ban from entering Sudan comes as part of a widespread crackdown on journalists by Sudan’s security and military forces. Last month, in a statement on the occasion of the first anniversary of a coup that derailed Sudan's transition to civilian rule, the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate said that the press and media in Sudan have been facing “a terrible regression in terms of press freedom”. 

Cox is a British film director and investigative journalist who directed a movie entitled The 'Spider-Man' of Sudan: The real-life superhero of the protest movement, published on YouTube by The Guardian newspaper on May 17.

The documentary tells a story of a Sudanese activist who dresses up for ongoing protests against the October 2021 military coup in the country. When asked why he dresses as Spiderman, the activist said it is his own way of resisting the Sudanese regime, especially after his best friend was killed during demonstrations on November 17 last year. “I have had to fight since childhood to simply exist, like so many in my country,” he said.

Cox was arrested in Darfur in March 2017 by the paramilitary Border Guards, along with Sudanese author Daoud Ibrahim Hari. He was released at the request of the British Embassy, ​​and at the time he produced a documentary that won several awards and was broadcast by the British Channel Four. The documentary film dealt with Philip Cox's harsh experience with the detention in Darfur at the hands of militiamen, shedding light on the horrific human rights violations in Sudan during the long rule of the regime of the ousted dictator Omar Al Bashir. 

You can read the original article by Medameek newspaper in Arabic here.