Sudan paper seized for criticising government-owner

Thu 21 Aug 2008, 6:44 GMT By Skye WheelerJUBA, Sudan, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Sudanese security agents seized the entire print run of a Sudanese newspaper four days running after it published articles criticising the government, the owner said on Thursday.

William Ezekiel said the government had objected to columns and editorials in his English-language paper Sudan Tribune which focused on shortcomings in the roll-out of a 2005 north-south peace deal.Ezekiel, who is based in south Sudan's capital Juba, said Sudan's media regulator, the National Press Council, sent him a letter earlier in the month telling him to stop publishing critical commentary.Agents moved in from Monday to Thursday this week to confiscate the broadsheet as it lay piled outside a Khartoum printing press, he added."They (the Press Council) are saying what we are doing goes against the constitution," Ezekiel said, adding he had filed a complaint with Sudan's constitutional court.No one from Sudanese state security or the press council was immediately available to comment.Freedom of the press was guaranteed in Sudan's 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, the deal that ended more than two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan.But journalists say they are still often put under pressure over sensitive stories and print runs of papers have been seized in the past.Both Khartoum and the government of semi-autonomous south Sudan have blamed each other for failing to implement the 2005 deal and clashed over a range of issues from border demarcation to sharing of oil revenues. (Editing by Andrew Heavens and Tim Pearce)