Sudan’s public prosecution has launched legal proceedings against a prominent newspaper and the bar association, triggering complaints that authorities are trying to restrict basic freedoms nearly a year after a coup. On Monday, the public prosecution’s cybercrimes unit issued an order to block the website of Al-Sudani newspaper, one of the country’s most respected dailies. A day earlier, the prosecution called the head of the steering committee for the Sudanese Bar Association in for questioning and ordered the seizure of its headquarters, a lawyer for the group said. “We learned about the prosecutor’s order through social media, and it was surprising because we were not informed of any complaint against the newspaper,” Al-Sudani editor-in-chief Ataf Mohamed Mukhtar said. Mukhtar said the newspaper, whose website was still operating Wednesday, would fight the order, which he said could be issued only by the courts. “This order goes against the right to free speech and free press that is guaranteed by the law,” he added. The bar association had recently developed a proposal for a new constitution to resolve Sudan’s political crisis, which has seen the military locked in a standoff with pro-democracy civilian parties and protesters.
SOURCE: VOA