Newspapers confiscated over government accusation

 Al-Turabi speaks at the press conference, accusing the government
of wiretapping his office. [Sudan Tribune photo]

Limited Press Freedom in Sudan
The complete print run of Al-Tayar and Al-Youm Al-Tali newspapers were confiscated by the National Information and Security Services on Monday February 20, 2012.

They each published accusations of wiretapping by the government. The leader of the opposition showed listening devices said to be found in his office.

Hassan al-Turabi of the Popular Congress Party held a press conference to publicize his allegations. Security officials warned the papers not to publish the information, but the papers printed the stories. The printed copies were confiscated.

Reporters later protested the actions of the government at National Press Council, which is in charge of licensing newspapers.

Sudan has been ranked among the world's 10 worst countries with regards to media freedom in the 2011-2012 Press Freedom Index of Reporters Without Borders.

Read the complete story at AllAfrica.

UPDATE: Al-Tayar newspaper will be closed down according to security officials.

2011 - looking back, what a year!

It is the first day of 2012. It is also Independence Day for the Sudanese. In 1956 Sudan became its own nation, no longer a colony of Britain, on January 1.

Thanks for visiting this blog, and supporting adroub.blogspot.com.
Just thought I'd share some statistics with you.

Total posts on this blog last year:  2011 - 136 posts


Most posts in a month:  October, 2011 - 19 posts

Most popular posts last year
#1   Nomadism - like an entertainer's lifestyle?

#2   Washington thinktank to discuss Beja People

#3   Video: Introduction to the Beja People

#4   Ethnic cleansing in S. Kordofan

Best post this year. [in my humble opinion] Enjoy!

Over 4000 views since uploading. About 140 per week.

Location of readers 
#1 United States
#2 Canada
#3 Germany
#4 Sudan
#5 Russia (?)

I hope you'll continue to join me in 2012. Come along on the journey as we learn more about current events and the Beja people. Make sure you've bookmarked this page, or added it to your RSS feed.

Online - Beja news websites

Keep up with current events among the Beja. Try these sites. Bookmark this page.

Sakanab.co.uk

From the United Kingdom is an Arabic language site that covers Beja events in Sudan with details and photos of events that are quite current. Very basic design. The first Beja newspaper. They've been on the net for a long time.
http://sakanab.co.uk/
In English. 

Sudannile.com

This site offers general Sudanese news, with an emphasis on politics, and a section for sports and articles by bloggers. Links. This site is written in Arabic. You'll have to dig around to find Beja specific items.
www.sudannile.com
Translated by google, into English.

East Democratic Party
The political party offers a plan for introducing change into the way Sudan is governed. A very basic platform is offered, along with an essay by a South African about the difficult situation in East Sudan [English pdf]. News items are available, but the volume of posts ranges from one post per month to fifty per month. In Arabic.
http://edp.jigsy.com/
Translated by google, into English

Beja Congress
The Beja Congress has not managed their web presence very well. An older website was allowed to expire, and the Congress relaunched with a new address in September 2011.

The new website offers a few news items each month, but they are all on a large single page, so translation of the site into English is not possible directly. You have to cut and paste portions of the page to read the news.  Other pages - development projects, about the party, are available [translated into English]. The site is in Arabic.
http://bejacongress.net/

Cut a portion of the news from the Arabic site and paste it here: http://translate.google.com/  Get it translated into English for free.

You can view portions of the old website, bejacongress.com, at the WayBack Machine [2005-2008 only].

Alrakoba.net
Wide selection of information and news about Sudan. Sudanese news updated round the clock Political articles/ music/ video/ Discussion forums. In Arabic.
http://www.alrakoba.net/
Translated by google, in English

SudaneseOnline.com
This is a very active site! Covers both regular news, political party and community associations press releases and hosts a very active community in its forums. The English pages are out of date.
SudaneseOnline.com    in Arabic.
The website as a whole, translated into English.

hedbandbija.wordpress.com/
Inside reports, articles and press releases from various Beja groups calling for dignity and recognition of Beja people. Political. Worth a look. In Arabic.
Translated into English...

www.kassala-asc.com/
A forum with some activity everyday. Created by Kassala expatriates living in Doha, Qatar. (Who knew?) Active Islamic threads, a photo thread, political threads, and many other discussion topics.
In Arabic.
Translated into English.

portsudanonline.com/
A city based blog website with news posted every few days. Nice blog design. Read it in Arabic. 
Or read it in English.

http://www.skyscrapercity.com/
On the forums, there are lots of posts for most countries of the world- this is a huge site!. But you can explore Sudan -  general discussion, politics, culture, South Sudan, women. In addition, there are lots of photos of buildings under construction and the landscapes of Port Sudan, Kassala, Khartoum Suakin, and Arkowit.  In English.
General Sudan page. Or visit the projects and construction, or photography forums.
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=2204

alsahafa.sd/
A newcomer on the internet, alsahafa has a few articles exploring the history of the eastern region of Sudan. It also keeps up with news and sports.
In Arabic.

Google offers a free 'alert' service. When it finds your key words or search terms, an email will be sent to you, telling you about the website that has used them. So you might enter "Beja" and "Egypt" or "Port Sudan" as search terms. Build your own email news service here.
http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en

toomha.com/
A great Beja news website!! Too bad it is no longer being updated. A few items from July and August 2011 are online.
http://toomha.com/
Translated into English.

adroub.blogspot.com
And of course, there's this site here and now.  Thanks for visiting. Why not bookmark us inyour favourites? You are on  adroub.blogspot.com




There are some facebook pages too, but we'll cover them in another post.

New website for the Beja Congress

The Beja Congress has launched a new website. {in Arabic}

In English [machine translated] try google.  To read further, get more text translated from Arabic to English, just refresh or reload your page. It seems that google translates only a select number of words at a time [1,000?].

I wonder if the BejaCongress.net team could archive posts by the month to make page loads easier...

Celebration of ethnic tribes in Egypt!

From the website of the host organization.

The Characters of Egypt Festival is an annual 3-day encounter of diverse cultures from 33 different ethnic groups residing in Egypt.

From 2008 to 2010, Characters of Egypt was hosted by Fustat Wadi el Gemal, 50 kms south of the Red Sea resort of Marsa Alam. This year, in 2011, the festival will be relocated from the desert environment to the Island of Heisa in Aswan on the River Nile. This new location offers an opportunity for the participants to experience different landscapes and cultures in their places of origin.

An estimated 3,000 guests are expected to participate in this year’s event. These are composed of 350 individuals from a variety of Egyptian ethnic groups, 100 volunteers, 100 journalists, media personnel and press, politicians, ambassadors, business people, academics, artists, visitors from Cairo and Alexandria along with foreign tourists.


The festival envisions creating a platform through which a variety of isolated ethnic groups can converge in a festive, communal atmosphere. The event offers a rare opportunity to link diverse cultures and to inculcate values of mutual respect, understanding, tolerance and equality.

Join us in celebrating Egypt’s cultural diversity on October 27-29, 2011 at Heisa Island, Aswan, EGYPT.

Port Sudan journalists detained

.
Reporters Without Borders is dismayed to learn that two newspaper journalists based in the eastern city of Port Sudan have been accused of trying to overthrow the constitution, a charge punishable by hanging, just for raising the possibility of eastern Sudan's secession in an article.

read it all.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201101310200.html

UPDATE: The United Nations radio service in Sudan reports that the Beja Congress has asked for the release of the two newspaper journalists. Beja Congress spokesman Salah Barkawin said that his party is committed to the unity of Sudan.

http://bit.ly/g8v1Vu
.