’Press freedoms declined remarkably’: Sudanese Journalists Network

According to the Sudanese Journalists Network (SJN), press freedoms declined remarkably during the past months after the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) changed its approach.

In its quarterly report released on Monday, the Sudanese Journalists Network stated that the harassment of journalists increased between July and September.

“The security apparatus has opted for a new approach to gag the press,” Hassan Barkiya, a senior member of the Network told Radio Dabanga.

“In order to avoid international pressure, they began focusing on the repeated summoning of journalists instead of confiscating print-runs of newspapers.”

Barkiya pointed in this context to the “NISS’ marketing of the executive and judicial organs in their actions against the press. “Outside Khartoum, journalists were summoned by public prosecutors.

“The NISS focuses again self-censorship by the journalists and editors, which is far more dangerous to the press than the security censors.”

Apart from summoning journalists, the NISS widened the ‘red lines’ on particular topics, and banned the publication of views disagreeing with the government’s position on various issues, such as the participation of Sudanese forces in the Saudi military campaign against the Houthi rebels in Yemen, or the National Dialogue.

The report also pointed to the NISS' increasing encroachment on personal property of journalists, its fabrication of news in order to create doubts about the credibility of the press, and the increased attacks on the electronic media.