[Daily Nation (Kenya)] Sudanese intelligence agents on Tuesday seized copies of an independent daily newspaper after it refused to pull an anti-government columnist, the chief editor said.The confiscation of Al-Jarida's Tuesday edition adds to thousands of other newspaper pages already seized from publications this year in what the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said is an attempt to silence opposition news coverage.
"A few days ago they ordered us by telephone to stop one of our columnists from writing," Al-Jarida's editor, Osman Shinger, told AFP, referring to the security service.
"We refused. For that reason they stopped our paper from distributing."
After intelligence officers shut down Al-Jarida in late September without explanation, the newspaper resumed publication in January but quickly had one of its editions seized.
Three other newspapers have been ordered shut down this year.
"By closing news outlets and seizing newspapers, President (Omar) al-Bashir's government demonstrates its continuing appetite to censor critical news coverage," Mohammed Abdel Dayem, CPJ's Middle East and North Africa coordinator, said in a statement this month.
"The government must immediately allow the shuttered newspapers to resume operations, and it should stop its practice of seizing every newspaper edition that carries an unflattering story."