New York, June 11, 2009--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned by the ‎passage of a Sudanese press law on Monday that falls short of ‎international standards for freedom of expression‎. 

New York, May 29, 2009--Sudanese media have suffered multiple blows in recent months as parliament considers a harshly repressive press bill and authorities impose an exceptional level of censorship, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. 

On Thursday, I participated in a panel discussion about media in the Middle East at the United Nations to commemorate World Press Freedom Day. Other panellists included Alya Al-Thani, counsellor, Permanent Mission of Qatar to the United Nations; Abderrahim Foukara, chief of the Washington Bureau of Al-Jazeera; Ebtihal Mubarak, journalist for Saudi Arabia's English-language daily Arab News; and Ghassan Shabaneh, assistant professor of Middle East and International Studies at Marymount Manhattan College. I talked about the great obstacles to press freedom in the region...

Sudan's execution this week of nine men found guilty of involvement in the 2006 assassination of editor Mohammed Taha Mohammed Ahmed, left, is seen by many there as an outrageous miscarriage of justice, spurred by a thirst on the part of President Omar al-Bashir's regime for settling scores with the rebellious region of Darfur.

Zuhair Latif, a Tunisian journalist with the Arabic Web site of news channel France 24, was detained for two days before being expelled from Sudan on March 1, 2009, the channel reported the following day.

The Sudanese weekly Al-Maidan was not issued on February 10, 2009, because of official censorship, Abdul Qadir Muhammad, a reporter for the newspaper told CPJ in an e-mail. Muhammad wrote that the Sudanese security staff responsible for censorship omitted six articles and the banner headline on the front page and at least 10 articles in rest of the 11 pages of the newspaper.

Sudan's Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which formally ended a decades-long civil war between north and south, officially protects press freedom. However, Sudanese officials ignored these guarantees in practice. In February, the government reinstated formal censorship of the print news media, instructing local editors to submit each issue for pre-approval. Throughout the year, authorities confiscated newspapers and harassed journalists for attempting to report on sensitive topics, such as the conflict in Darfur, the Sudanese security forces, and official censorship itself. The government also used more subtle methods to control content, such as withholding government advertisements and imposing strict licensing that allows for the suspension of critical publications on administrative technicalities.

Dear President-elect Obama: I am writing as chairman of the Committee to Protect Journalists to seek your leadership in reaffirming America's role as a staunch defender of press freedom throughout the world. Journalists in many countries who risk their lives and liberty upholding the values of free expression look to the United States for support.

New York, November 19, 2008--The Sudanese government should halt censorship of independent and opposition newspapers, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. On Tuesday, 10 newspapers suspended publication for a day to protest government censorship and the detention of journalists a day earlier. ...

New York, October 14, 2008--The Committee to Protect Journalists is concerned about a criminal lawsuit that has been filed against the editor of The Citizen newspaper in Southern Sudan and calls on authorities to drop the case immediately....