Print-run of another Sudanese newspaper confiscated in Khartoum

Security agents confiscated the print-run of El Akhbar daily newspaper in Khartoum this morning.

A reason was not provided. Yesterday (Sunday), all copies of El Watan were barred from distribution.

Siddig Yousef, senior member of Sudanese Communist Party, commented to Radio Dabanga that the confiscations of the newspapers and the suppression of a peaceful protest in front of a Catholic Comboni school in Omdurman this morning, “are all signs that the Khartoum regime’s repressive policies will not change after the formation of the new government on Saturday”.

Yousef himself was blocked this early morning at Khartoum airport from travelling to Strasbourg. The Sudanese Communist Party is a leading member of the National Consensus Forces (NCF), a coalition of opposition parties that signed the Sudan Appeal, a political communique calling for regime-change, in December last year.

The European Parliament had invited the Sudan Appeal signatories for a hearing on Sudan, scheduled to take place tomorrow.

Dr Maryam El Mahdi and Mohamed Abdallah El Doma, vice-presidents of the National Umma Party, and Fathi Nouri of the Sudanese Baath Party were stopped from travelling too this morning.

On Saturday, Farah El Agar, legal consultant of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), and Ibrahim El Sheikh, head of the Sudanese Congress Party were barred from travelling to Strasbourg. NCF chairman Faroug Abu Eisa was not allowed to leave Khartoum last Wednesday.