Sunday, 7, August, 2005 (02, Rajab, 1426)

Sudan Bans 2 Papers for Coverage of Riots
Agence France Presse —

 

KHARTOUM, 7 August 2005 — Sudanese authorities banned two independent newspapers yesterday for their coverage of the three days of deadly riots that followed the death of southern leader John Garang, their management said.

Khartoum State security officials raided the presses of the Al-Watan and Alwan newspapers at dawn and confiscated the entire print run, staff said.

Al-Watan deputy editor Mustafa Abul Azim said his paper might have been banned because of an editorial criticizing the governor of Khartoum for his handling of the riots.

The editorial accused the governor of not responding promptly or with adequate force to quell the violence that erupted after Garang’s death in a helicopter crash last Saturday.

Southerners, convinced that the crash was no accident, looted and vandalized businesses and property owned by northern Arabs. More than 110 people died in the capital alone.

The violence also extended to towns in the south, including the capital Juba, where rioters targeted northern Arab traders, forcing hundreds to flee to Khartoum.

The management of the Alwan newspaper told AFP the Islamist daily was probably banned because of an editorial arguing that southerners in the north should be treated in the same way as they treated northerners in the south.

The piece also called for the deportation of all southerners from the north.

More Than 1,600

Detained Following Riots

Sudanese authorities detained some 1,640 people following deadly riots in the capital sparked by the death of Garang, a human rights group said yesterday.

Of those, 700 have already been tried and convicted of offenses including looting, theft and destruction of public or private property, Kamal Mohammed Al-Amin, a lawyer with the Sudanese Group for Human Rights, told AFP.

Punishments handed down by the courts ranged from fines or flogging to three-month prison terms, he said.

Amin said that nearly all of those arrested were southerners, despite the fact that the outpouring of anger that followed Garang’s death sparked retaliatory attacks by northerners.

But he said his group had no firm evidence to back up complaints by southerners that they were targeted solely because they were southern.

“In situations such as this, it’s possible that there were arbitrary arrests,” he said.