Sudan: Journalist Mohamed Latif detained every day from 11 am to 5 pm

Journalist and writer Mohamed Latif is summoned every day by officers of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) since June 16. He is then questioned and detained from 11 am to 5 pm, the Committee for the Restoration of the Sudanese Journalists Union reported.

Mohamed Latif is founder and director of the Teiba Press centre. The Committee for the Restoration of the Sudanese Journalists Union explained in a statement on Sunday that the inquiries of the security apparatus during the past two months focus on the activities and the initiatives of the centre.

Former regime

The Committee condemns this NISS actions and considers it a continuation of the methods of the former regime that were meant to undermine freedom of opinion and other freedoms, and to silence people.

The Committee consideres what Latif is going through as part of a general crackdown on freedoms and as “attempts to restore the clock to a time that has past – which is impossible”.

The trade unions that functioned under the former regime were supporting the former regime. The Committee for the Restoration of the Sudanese Journalists Union is trying to set up a real and independent Sudanese Journalists Union.

Closed

During the past ten years, the regime of ousted President Omar Al Bashir, closed a large number of successful civil society organisations: the Sudan Social Development Organisation (Sudo, in 2009), the Sudanese Studies Centre (2012), the Nuba Mountains-based Organisation for Human Rights and Development (2012), El Khatim Adlan Centre for Enlightenment and Human Development, which was Khartoum’s leading pro-democracy think-tank (KACE, 2012), the Cultural Forum for Literary Criticism (2012), the House of Arts (2013), the Aslan English language teaching centre (2013), the Centre for Civil Society Development (2014), the Salmmah Women’s Resource Centre (2014), and the Sudan Human Rights Monitor, founded by Dr. Amin Mekki Madani (2014), the Mahmoud Mohamed Taha Centre (2015), the National Civil Forum (2015), and the Sudanese Writers Union (2015). Only the Writers Union has been allowed to resume its work.

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