Censorship as a Human Rights Violation in Sudan
Posted by Sarah Goomar on Jun 17, 2013
Sudanese newspapers vendors in Khartoum.
The Sudanese National Intelligence and Security Services, or NISS,
confiscated over 10 major newspapers in Sudan in May of 2012, banned
13 journalists from operation, and identified several prohibited
topics of discussion. News reports have documented recent bans on news
outlets Al-Midan, Al-Meghar al-Syasy, and Al-Intibaha for critical
coverage on President Omar Al-Bashir’s plans to seek reelection in
2015, as well as violence between rebel groups in South Kordofan. The
NISS utilized confiscation and intimidation in order to abridge press
liberties, forcing news sources into bankruptcy and denying
journalists their livelihood. Ironically, just weeks ago, Sudanese
authorities issued a presidential decision to ban pre-publication
censorship. First Vice President Ali Osman Taha issued these
directives with the express order that they be effective immediately,
allowing news sources and journalists more freedom and protection.
This, on the heels of a year marred with censorship, violence, and
grave human rights abuses, appeared to be a milestone in Sudan’s
process of democratization.
This apparent progress has been rendered null with the closing of four
newspapers in late May. The closed newspapers—which include those that
are Communist, pro-government, and independent—are being forced to
discontinue operation after having reported on fighting that occurred
between the Sudan Armed Forces, or SAF, and the Sudanese Revolutionary
Front , or SRF, last month. Sudan’s tightening of restrictions against
the press has been a response in large part to their newfound
knowledge of the opposition’s intent to seize control of Khartoum. The
marginalized status of groups on the periphery of Khartoum such as
those in South Kordofan, Blue Nile, and Darfur is compounded by lack
of access to legitimate narrative and discourse, contributing further
to a collective sense of oppression and frustration, a form of
structural violence in itself.
Enough Project Senior Advisor Omer Ismail states that censorship not
only sustains dictatorships that are inherently anti-transparency in
nature, but is a precursor for the current Sudanese political
establishment itself. He remarks,
“You feel sympathy sometimes for the fighters from Darfur or the
Nuba Mountains, because they had no political space where they could
express whatever that they thought was their legitimate right. And so,
they resorted to violence. They’re filling a vacuum that is created by
a government that is taking more than its share in every aspect of
life.”
Ismail articulates the ways in which the contested right to expression
and freedom of press in Sudan mirrors the larger power struggle and
violent atrocities taking place on the ground, as well as a way in
which these human rights abuses can take place without question.
Human rights advocates have condemned the violation of one’s right to
free speech as perhaps the most outright and flagrant human rights
abuse. Experts on Sudan such as Ismail have highlighted the ways in
which the current autocratic and fundamentalist regime was born in
conditions of contested legitimacy. It seems as though the specter of
the regime’s passing is now producing a similar conclusion.
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