Sudan closes newspaper, warns two others from running Saturday

KHARTOUM, Sudan -- Sudanese authorities closed an independent daily newspaper and warned two others against running Saturday editions, journalists at each paper said.

State-run television said Saturday that security officials ordered the Al-Watan daily closed for reasons having to do with national security. Further details were not provided and officials were not immediately available for comment.

Adil Sidahmed Khalifa, the paper's deputy editor, told The Associated Press that executives were not notified of the closure.

"We heard the news like everybody else, on state television," he said.

Five truck loads of police sealed the building, Khalifa said.

Khalifa said the government opposed his newspaper's coverage of corruption cases and its interviews with southern rebels who are fighting a civil war against government forces.

Earlier, journalists from two independent papers -- the influential Al-Huria daily and Al-Sahafa, Sudan's oldest private paper -- said state security officials warned them not to print Saturday editions.

A state security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, denied that threats were made.

Al-Huria's news editor, Osman Hamid, said officials summoned editor-in-chief Hajj Warag on Friday for questioning over a column alleging the government misappropriated huge sums of money.

Al-Sahafa editor Nur Eddin Medani also was summoned by state security and advised that his paper should not publish a Saturday edition, a senior journalist said on condition of anonymity.

On Friday, Al-Sahafa published a story quoting a statement by the banned Popular National Congress party criticizing the government's one-year renewal of Sudan's state of emergency.