The Situation of Journalists and the Press in the Sudanese War - Taher al-Motasem
The Situation of Journalists and the Press
in the Sudanese War - Taher al-Motasem
It
did not occur to many Sudanese who woke up on the morning of April 15, 2023,
corresponding to the twenty-third of Ramadan, that the truth would be the first
victim and that they would fall into the clutches of media deception and fake
news networks or that some would be dominated by hate speech and its various
ugly features.
In
March 2023, about a month before the Khartoum war, another war was happening, a
verbal war and threats issued from here and there. Some Muslim Brotherhood
members of the former regime were threatening to block the road to an agreement
between the army, the Rapid Support Forces, and civilian forces.
The
Sudanese press had been monitoring the movements of the Rapid Support Forces.
The newspaper Al-Hirak Al-Siyasi came
out two days before the outbreak of the war with the headline: "Rapid
Support Forces Besiege the Intelligence Service Buildings," and Al-Sudani newspaper reported heavy
deployments of the Rapid Support Forces.
According
to the Journalists Syndicate report issued in April 2024, a year after the war,
from the very first moment, all types of media turned into legitimate targets
for both parties to the conflict. Media institutions left the labor market, and
about a thousand journalists lost their jobs, i.e., more than 50% of the
Syndicate’s membership, and joined other professions.
Ninety
percent of media infrastructure was destroyed, looted, or stopped functioning.
Their closure led to the absence of professional media, and the truth was
assassinated by the lack of credible information and news. Accordingly,
coverage committed to the rules and ethics of the profession declined in favor
of war media and misleading news. The two parties to the conflict monopolized
information and spread information fabricated by the war media machine. As a
result, harmful speech started to spread.
The
violence directed against civilians in general and journalists, in particular,
has decreased the number of journalists present in the cities and states that
witnessed confrontations. They were forced to flee and seek refuge. A media
blackout occurred after the number of journalists in the capital, Khartoum,
decreased to less than 100. The number reached no more than 60 in Darfur and
less than 20 in Al-Jazeera and Kordofan states.
Faced
with this dire situation, journalists in conflict zones and areas under the
control of warring parties cannot move freely within or from one place to
another to cover the news. The lack of protection is due to the warring
parties’ failure to abide by international agreements binding them to respect
freedom of the press and expression, protect and ensure the safety of
journalists, guarantee their right to independent journalistic coverage of
armed conflicts, and not to disrupt the journalistic institutions for which
they work.
However,
the most serious crime was the complete cut-off of most of Sudan's
communications networks and internet services. It deepened the complexities of
journalistic work and the availability of information for monitoring and
documenting operations. 80% of Sudan's states remained out of coverage for over
a month. In the five states of Darfur, the outage continued for eight
consecutive months. It was a complex humanitarian crime used by both parties to
the conflict to create more media blackouts of the crimes and impose more
pressure on citizens by depriving them of their most fundamental rights,
including the right to access information. Contact with many journalists has
been lost for months, and no one knows what fate awaits them.
All
the security restrictions and continuous targeting inevitably forced
journalists to deny their journalistic identity. Both parties saw journalism as
a crime. Successive defamation campaigns and accusations of treason targeted
several journalists, accusing them of being loyal to one of the warring
parties. Given the weakness of support, protection, and advocacy, it was
inevitable that many journalists would be displaced, moving to safe areas
within Sudan and staying in shelters that lacked the bare necessities of life.
A
year into the war, hundreds of journalists were forced to leave areas of armed
conflict and then the country in search of safety, surrounded by accusations of
treason and targeted with arbitrary detention, arrest, enforced disappearance,
or death according to the mood of the two parties to the conflict. In many
cases, journalists left Sudan illegally after being subjected to continuous
targeting, which directly affected their professional stability. Women
journalists, in particular, face more considerable challenges and violations
because they are subject to gender-based violence, in addition to violations
targeting them as journalists.
About
80% of women journalists lost their jobs, and hundreds lost their property and
fundamental rights. During the year of the war, the Freedoms Secretariat of the
Sudanese Journalists Syndicate recorded 393 direct violations against
journalists and media outlets, classified and documented according to their
nature. Most of these violations occurred to journalists due to their work and
affiliation with the journalism profession.
Assassination
Six
journalists, including two women journalists, were assassinated during the
conflict. At least two of them were targeted due to their journalistic work:
field correspondent Halima Idris Salem and Blue Nile TV journalist Ahmed
Youssef Arabi.
Observers
find that even war journalists or correspondents of major foreign agencies
cannot find a way to cover the war events. According to an office director in
an Arab satellite channel, they were forced to withdraw their correspondents
from under RSF control earlier. Minister of Culture and Information Khaled
Al-Aiser warned satellite channels, stressing that anyone who violates
professional guidelines will have the channel’s office closed until he leaves
the ministry.
The
professional media blackout led to the prevalence of deception and the spread
of hate speech. The international media is also clearly selective in covering
what reports from international organizations call the largest humanitarian
disaster while shedding light on other crises that are no more serious than the
crisis in Sudan.
References
Al-Hirak
al-Siyasi and Al-Sudani Newspapers, April 13, 2023.
Report
of the Sudanese Journalists Syndicate, April 2024.
"Call to Support Sudan's Media," May 2024.
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