Khartoum - Sudan intelligence services on Tuesday imposed press censorship, which was lifted in September, six months ahead of a key referendum on independence for south Sudan, the country's association of journalists said.
"We have been notified by the intelligence services that the newspaper Al-Intibaha has been closed and that from today press censorship has once again been imposed," Mohiedinne Titawi, president of the Sudanese Union of Journalists, told reporters.
"The censorship will focus on the issue of the country's unity or separation and the security of south Sudan," he added.
Titawi's comments follow earlier reports by Sudanese journalists that the government halted the distribution of three newspapers considered critical of the authorities in south Sudan.
The three dailies, Al-Intibaha, Al-Tayyar and Al-Ahdath, which are all deemed critical in one way or another of the south Sudan authorities, were not available on the streets of the capital on Tuesday, according to journalists working for the publications.
Al-Intibaha, which will be closed "for an undetermined period", according to its editor Al-Siddig al-Rizeigui, was one of the only newspapers openly advocating secession.
The information department of the intelligence and security services explained its decision to reinstate censorship by saying it "regretted the lack of commitment of several political dailies in their treatment of national issues", according to the Sudanese Media Centre which is close to the government.
The decision is aimed at "reducing the negative role of newspapers wanting to strengthen separatist tendencies in the north and south, in opposition to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, which extols unity", the SMC added.
The CPA, which was signed in 2005, brought to an end more than two decades of civil war between north and south Sudan which left two million people dead.
A central provision of the peace agreement is the January 2011 referendum that gives southerners the chance to decide whether to remain part of a united Sudan or choose full independence for their region, with its vast and largely untapped natural resources, including oil.
President Omar al-Beshir last September announced the lifting of press censorship, ending a system under which newspapers were screened by censors every night to purge sensitive articles before publication.
But newspapers were also informed of red lines that should not be crossed, including matters of national security and articles sensitive to public morality in the conservative Muslim-majority country.
Opposition and independent papers had complained that media censorship and repression had made a comeback in Sudan since Beshir's re-election in April.
In past weeks the authorities have shut an opposition newspaper, Rai al-Shaab, while intelligence services have visited several opposition and independent papers in Khartoum demanding that several articles be removed.
"At 12.30am, the security services called the printers to order them not to distribute the first edition of the newspaper," Osman Mirghani, managing editor of Al-Tayyar, told reporters on Tuesday.
"They said they did not want anything negative published in connection with the south Sudan government or the SPLM (the former southern rebels)."
The United States has voiced new criticism of Sudan for increased repression and a "deteriorating environment". - AFP