Sudan is waiting for democracy. The security police still think it necessary to film journalists discussing freedom of expression.
In the apartheid museum in Johannesburg, South Africa you can watch video footage that the
security police filmed during the freedom struggle to use as evidence against activists. It now is documentation of the road to democracy. It is uncertain whether the films that the security services in Khartoum recorded at a media roundtable at the beginning of December 2005 will ever be seen again.
Journalists, media owners and representatives from civil society in from both Northern and Southern Sudan met at a National Round Table on Freedom of Expression and independentM edia in Sudan, assisted by the London-based organization, Article 19 and Norwegian Peoples Aid.
A similar meeting in Rumbek i Southern Sudan earlier in the year had demanded media freedom and widespread changes in present laws as a concrete follow-up on the Comprehensive Peace Agreement signed by the SPLM in the South and the government in Khartoum. Such challenges to the status quo are clearly of interest to the security services in the north. They made sure they filmed the Khartoum meeting.
Independent media workers from both the north and the south did not flinch from calling for laws that guarantee Freedom of Expression, Freedom of the Press, and access to information.
by Jan Speed
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