04 March 2016•Update: 04 March 2016
By Mohammed Amin
KHARTOUM
Thirty Sudanese journalists have ended a three-day hunger strike following successful mediation by a government committee and the Sudanese Journalists Union (SJU).
The journalists began their hunger strike on Tuesday to protest the closure late last year of private Sudanese daily Al-Tayyar by the Sudanese authorities.
The reasons for the newspaper’s closure last December are still unclear, with Sudanese security organs remaining tight-lipped on the issue.
After a government committee and the SJU intervened to mediate the dispute, however, the hunger-striking journalists on Thursday evening announced that they had collectively ended their strike action.
According to Al-Tayyar Chief Editor Osman Merganim, the journalists ended their strike after receiving guarantees that the government would not to interfere in a suit they had lodged at Sudan’s constitutional court contesting the newspaper’s closure.
"The hunger strike has ended after three days after the government promised it would not interfere in the case we have raised at the constitutional court," Merganim told Anadolu Agency.
SJU Chairman Alsadig Alrizigi likewise confirmed that the union had succeeded in convincing the journalists to end their hunger strike.
''We led the mediation between the authorities and the journalists and agreed that the suspension of Al-Tayyar should be resolved through judicial channels," Alrizigi told reporters in Khartoum on Thursday.
Sudan ranked 174th out of 180 countries on Reporters without Borders’ 2015 press freedom index.
