Three Sudanese columnists were prevented from writing by the National intelligence Security Services (NISS) after they condemned the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Journalists Salah Awooda, Zuhair Elsrag and Rishan Oshi were banned from writing for between five to fifteen days during August after criticizing the Islamist group. This is part of a growing trend in Sudan for opinion columnists to be targeted by Government censorship, rather than newspapers.
Awooda, who works for the pro-government newspaper Alkir Lahza, was removed from his desk after he suggested that the Sudanese government’s criticism of the Egyptian military was hypocritical, as they also came to power via a military coup.
“They have suspended me because I condemned their contradictions about Egyptian events and claimed that they have acted as if they are democratic people,” Awooda says.
He also pointed out that the Sudanese government and its allied Islamists groups have organised demonstrations in front of the Egyptian embassy in Khartoum protesting against military action against the Brotherhood. Moreover, the official Sudanese media and others aligned with the Government have waged a campaign against the military intervening in politics in Egypt.
“I’m just surprised how they talk about legitimacy and democracy in Egypt,” he added, “while they undertook a military coup against the democratically elected government in Sudan in 1989 and they didn’t apologise to the Sudanese people for what they did. This is double standards”.
Awooda has been suspended on three occasions over the last two months, without any legal basis, following telephone calls by NISS agents to his editor-in-chief. The columnist was barred from writing for a month, and then for a further two days, after he criticized Government censorship. He was then detained for 15 more days without any apparent cause. In 2010, Awooda’s appointment as editor-in-chief of independent daily newspaper Aljareeda was blocked despite his considerable experience as editor-in-chief of three newspapers.
“They have stopped me three times since last July without giving any official reasons” he says. “They just suspend writers according to their mood without any legal basis in NISS regulations or the current constitution.”
Sudanese journalists have been engaged in a long running battle with the government over press freedom. 15 independent and anti-government newspapers have been closed in recent years. Since 2011, about 15 columnists have been prevented from working by NISS, though some have been allowed to return to their jobs after being suspended. Five have gone on to write for web publications but now the government is preparing a new law on electronic media which may lead to further harassment. In September 2009 the Sudanese Constitutional Court in Sudan rejected an appeal brought by a group of journalists, writers and columnists against newspaper censorship by NISS.
In a report on freedom of speech published in May by the organisation Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), the Sudanese government is accused of continuing to restrain press freedoms. It noted that the Sudanese government, via the NISS, has started to put pressure on individual columnists leading to their suspension, rather than targeting newspapers as they used to.
“There are many reasons for this,” says Faisal Mohamed Salih, a Khartoum columnist and winner of the Peter Mackler Award for ethical journalism. “For a long time the NISS restrained the news and other types of journalism as they controlled the newspapers but they moved their attention to the columnists because they have become stars. Readers prefer to get their information in opinion columns instead of the news stories.
“The NISS has succeeded in controlling newspapers but they couldn’t do it with the columnists because they are not employees of the newspapers, unlike the journalists, and can publish information that journalists couldn’t do” Faisal adds.
Yassin Hassan Bashir, another columnist who has been stopped from writing, thinks that the columns are an easier target for NISS censors compared to essays and investigative stories, simply as they are quicker to read.
“Because they are shorter than other type of journalism,” Bashir says, “they can read them more easily. You sometimes find the same opinions in longer, more difficult investigative stories, but they ignore it. They are not aware enough to evaluate the longer or more complex articles or they are too lazy to read them all”.
Aldooma argues that while government censors still target newspapers, they do so less than in the past. As the nature of journalism in Sudan changes to more opinion journalism than news and investigative journalism columnists will be increasingly targeted.
Despite promising reform and introducing a new constitution in 2011, Morocco’s treatment of dissidents indicates the changes were just window dressing, Samia Errazzouki writes
Morocco’s King Mohammed VI announced a constitutional reform process during a 9 March 2011 speech, following popular protests organised by the 20 February Movement. Regime supporters and allies — France and the United States — hailed the move towards reform as “unprecedented.” Morocco was soon referred to as the “model for the region.”
But the government’s repression of freedom of expression has remained steadfast even after the new constitution.
Most recently, in March 2013 dissident rapperMouad Belghouat (alias El Haqed) was released from jail after he served his second, year-long prison sentence over his anti-regime lyrics, which were described as “undermining state authority.”
In February 2012, 18-year old Walid Bahomane was charged with “defaming Morocco’s sacred values” after he posted a caricature of Mohammed VI on Facebook. Even though he did not create the illustration, Bahomane was convicted and sentenced to one year in prison for the act of sharing the image.
In the same month, Abdessamad Hidour, an activist with the 20 February Movement faced similar charges after a video of him criticising Mohammed VI was uploaded on Youtube. In the video, he likened Mohammed VI’s reign to colonialism and railed against his corrupt practices, landing him a three-year prison sentence.
These are only a few cases out of many that have drawn widespread attention over the nature of the charges as well as the expedited trials that landed all those charged in jail.
Morocco’s latest constitution supposedly grants the right to freedom of expression, but it still leaves room for repression.
The king stacked the constitutional reform deck by appointing the committee to undertake the work. The reforms introduced some liberalisation, but did not address demands for democratisation of the system. It’s an old trick dating to the 1960s when Morocco’s first constitution was drafted following its independence from France.
The latest version of the constitution incorporates human rights language and places greater attention on the legal protection of free speech, such as the following:
Article 10 grants the opposition the “freedom of opinion, expression, and of assembly.”
Article 25 states that “The freedoms of thought, of opinion and of expression under all their forms are guaranteed.”
Article 28 addresses the press, “The freedom of the press is guaranteed and may not be limited by any form of prior censure.”
Out of context, these articles stand as testaments for what regime supporters describe as “landmark reforms.” However in scrutiny and in practice, these articles have proved to be futile. In Article 28, for example, immediately after stipulating the guarantee of freedom of the press, there is a caveat that leaves this article open to interpretation: “All have the right to express and to disseminate freely and within the sole limits expressly provided by the law, information, ideas, and opinion.” Immediately, “freedom of the press” is limited to a legal framework dictated by the regime and this interpretation has come into play in various recent trials where freedom of speech and press has been threatened, especially in instances when the monarchy has been the target of criticism.
The regime’s response to free speech cases following constitutional reform is swift and relatively consistent, indicating no clear break from its past policies. Despite these violations of freedom of expression, Moroccans continue to express their dissent in multiple media, from online publications to protests on the streets, indicating that the regime’s alleged “path toward reforming” is long and winding.
Samia Errazzouki is a Moroccan-American writer and co-editor of Jadaliyya’s Maghreb Page.
A Kuwaiti man was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Monday after being convicted of endangering state security as a result of messages he sent on Twitter. The judge found Hamad al-Naqi guilty of insulting the prophet Muhammad and Islam, and insulting the rulers of neighbouring Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. Al-Naqi pleaded innocent at the start of the trial last month, saying his Twitter account had been hacked and he had not posted the messages.
Detained blogger Alaa Abdel Fattah (@alaa) was denied a request to be released from detention by the High State Security Court on 5 December, preventing him from being present for the birth of his son the next day.
A Cairo-based media collective called Mosireen made a video showing the blogger at his trial, followed by a clip of baby Khalid with his mother, blogger Manal Hassan, after his birth on 6 December.
Abdel Fattah’s son was named Khalid after the iconic Khalid Said, whose brutal beating by Alexandria police in 2010 made him one of the icons of Egypt’s revolution. The birth of Khalid during the detention of his father has become an unfortunate family tradition, as Abdel Fattah’s sister and fellow activist, Mona Seif, was born while her father, a human rights lawyer was serving time in prison for his work.
Abdel Fattah, who has been detained since 30 October, was initially detained for 15 days, and since then his prison sentence has been extended twice, bringing his total time in prison to 45 days. He was initially prosecuted by the military court, but had his case transferred to civil prosecution on 22 November. While there was initial hope in the transfer, many have been dismayed by the continuation of the same pattern. Abdel Fattah has previously refused to be interrogated by military prosecutors, as he has been active in speaking out against the practice of trying civilians by the military. Abdel Fattah is scheduled to appear in court on Sunday, where he will learn whether or not his detention will be extended for another 15 days, pending investigation.
In February 2012, 18-year old 