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Sudan seizes 3 newspapers for covering protests

Opposition groups have organised repeated demonstrations since bread prices jumped in early January when a government decision to leave wheat imports to the private sector triggered a sharp rise in the cost of flour.

Several newspapers have criticised the government's decision, and on Thursday agents of the National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS) confiscated the print-runs of Al-Tayar, Al-Midan and Al-Jadida newspapers.

"The agents of NISS confiscated all copies of our newspaper today without giving any reason," Al-Jadida editor Ashraf Abdelaziz told AFP.

Media in Sudan are frequently targeted for their reporting. The country regularly ranks near the bottom of international press freedom rankings.

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Several senior leaders of opposition groups have been arrested by NISS agents since January in a bid to prevent the food price protests from spreading.

Several journalists were arrested while covering protests in Khartoum last month. Most have since been released.

"There is a perception among senior government officials that we are communists, which is not true," said Abdelaziz when asked why his newspaper had become a repeated target of NISS.

"We have also refused NISS orders asking us not to cover the protests."

Anti-riot police and NISS agents have so far managed to swiftly break up the protests, which have seen small groups of demonstrators chanting anti-government slogans in Khartoum and other towns.

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Sudan witnessed similar sporadic protests in late 2016 after a government decision to cut fuel subsidies.

The authorities cracked down on those protests in an attempt to prevent a repeat of deadly unrest that followed a similar round of subsidy cuts in 2013.

Human rights groups say dozens of people were killed when security forces crushed the 2013 protests, drawing international condemnation.

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