Unlike other countries in the region, Sudan is grossly underreported, and this was ever so evident during Friday and Saturday’s street demonstrations. The Sudanese government keeps a tight grip on local media and bans journalists from reporting on issues of human rights and corruption.
This however does not justify the blatant lack of interest from international media outlets. Al Jazeera, for instance, played a prominent role in reporting the uprisings in several Arab countries, but netizens say it seems to ignore the events currently unfolding in Sudan.
The media coverage of recent protests in Sudan was confined to articles in Al Arabiya and Al Jazeera, including some snippets on Al Jazeera’s English Channel. Other news outlets to cover the protests include CNN, the Malaysian news outlet The Star, the New York Times, Yahoo News, ABC News, and the Chicago Tribune. Nonetheless, this has not brought enough attention to the issues on the ground, as most of these news outlets don’t have much impact in the region, say netizens.
The protests kicked off after Friday prayers in a mosque in Wad Nubawi neighborhood in Omdurman. A call for protests tagged as #SandstormFriday was made a day earlier. The demonstrations were organized to protest against rising prices and the government’s new austerity plans that were announced by Sudanese president Omar Al-Bashir and implemented last week.
More...See also:
Sudan sees rise in anti-government protests
2011–2012 Sudanese protests
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