by Joseph Oduha
February 4, 2019
We journalists in South Sudan are dealing with a harsh crackdown. It is being perpetrated by our country’s media authorities. Its objective is to stop us from reporting on the unrest sweeping Sudan, our neighbor to the north.
The authorities’ fear: the unrest could spread to South Sudan.
Harsh though our crackdown is, it pales in comparison to what our colleagues in Sudan are experiencing.
Their dire fates have led the renowned Committee to Protect Journalists (https://cpj.org to call upon Sudanese authorities to release the journalists detained for the “crime” of covering the widespread protests against the Bashir regime.
“President Bashir’s attempt to deflect the public’s anger by smearing Sudan’s brave journalists is both futile and shameful,” says Sheriff Mansour, the CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator.
“Rounding up more journalists won’t help authorities find a solution to the country’s ongoing unrest,” he added.
The arrested journalists:
Tariq Ali, Iman Osman, Musab Mohamed, Osama Hassan, Adam Mahdi and Amin Sanada.
These imprisonments have been accompanied by a revocation of the credentials of journalists working for international news outlets, and by a curtailing of access to the Internet and social media.
