Sudan: El Tayaar paper seized for fifth time in a month

Agents of Sudan’s National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) confiscated the print run of El Tayaar newspaper in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum on Sunday morning.

According to the publisher and editor-in-chief of the newspaper, Osman Mirghani, it is the fifth time the paper has been gagged in a month.

He says that the financial losses in printing costs, administrative expenses and loss of advertising revenue amount to more than SDG500,000 ($25,500). As usual, the NISS did not give any reasons for the seizure, but they told Mirghani that there were “some notes on opinions aired in the newspaper without specifying names”

Mirghani pointed out that El Tayaar has been targeted by the NISS since the calls for civil disobedience in late November.

On Saturday 17 December, morning, NISS agents confiscated the print-run of El Jareeda newspaper for the eighth time since the end of November.

Editor-in-chief Ashraf Abdelaziz told Radio Dabanga that he does not understand the targeting of his newspaper by the security apparatus.

“Our newspaper is independent, and reports about the issues and problems of the people. Even if we address matters related to many obvious issues in politics, we are reporting about them in a professional way, without any agenda.”

Newspaper seizures are common in Sudan, which consistently ranks newr the bottom of world press freedom indeces, however there has been a severe clampdown over the last two months since the start of the civil disobedience campaign.