Journalist interrogated for interview with Sudan general

A journalist was interrogated by security service agents for several hours about an interview published in El Tayyar newspaper on Sunday.

Maha El Tileb, reporting for El Tayyar, was detained for several hours following the publication of the interview with State Minister and Director of the President's Office, General Taha El Hussein. Members of the Sudanese security service (NISS) demanded her to hand over the audio recording of the interview.

The Sudanese Journalists Network condemned the step and the hours-long interrogation at the NISS premises in Khartoum. A press statement added that Maha received a phone call from a NISS official one day before the summon, asking her if she owned an audio recording of the interview with National Congress Party member Taha El Hussein.

'He summoned her to report to the NISS office the next day when she refused to cooperate.'

Last Thursday, the security apparatus confiscated the print-runs of two newspapers, El Wifag and El Jareeda without an explanation. The service summoned the newspaper's editor-in-chief, Ashraf Abdelaziz, and a journalist of the newspaper, Hanadi El Siddig.

El Siddig was summoned to the security service's office the next day again. The continued summoning may be an attempt to intimidate El Siddig as she has been appointed editor-in-chief of the new Akhbar El Watan newspaper, which has recently obtained a license from the Press and Publications Council.  

Correction 18/07/2017 16:30: Maha El Tileb reports for El Tayyar, and not the newspaper this article initially reported.