Free independent press, is a major
manifestation of democratic societies. Through such freedom one can measure the
extent of development of societies and their respect for freedom of thought,
freedom of opinion and expression, as well as the degree of respect of a
society to human freedoms and rights as declared in human rights charters, and
charters of economic and social rights concerned with the humanitarian
situation world wide, as well as the set rights included in both constitutions
and laws.

The press plays the role of the spearhead in
the war against domination and tyranny. Its most important role is to expose
corruption and torture, exposing the alliance of States with the capital -
locally and globally - and companies and major financial institutions against
the interests of peoples and the poor everywhere.

The biggest task for the press is event hunting
everywhere, and the dissemination of true facts, and fighting against
counterfeiting facts, events and the consciousness of citizens. Free press has
the responsibility of providing true photos, news & events for citizens in
all societies. How many major issues were triggered by the press, some issues even
led to the resignation of high rank officials and overthrowing governments. Some
issues revealed collusions among the weapons & drugs Mafias and the role of
such Mafias in fuelling wars and internal strife. There are many other scandals
where free press was successful in drawing the attention of public opinion
everywhere , and thus contributed to the disappearance of the perpetrators of such
scandals from the scene.

Therefore, the fight continues to be raging all
the time between the ruling regimes on one side and free press the on the other.
The degree of severity of this war varies from a society to another, they run
in less severe forms in democratic societies, but increasingly vicious in
backward and the less developed communities, such as the Arab region, which is
still Living under military rule and for more than half a century.

The authoritarian military rule is so much
hostile to freedoms, chiefly press freedom. It fights hard against it, and censorship
officers take their position in the dark halls of any newspaper, armed with
shears ready to eradicate any thoughts that they think - or rather what the
ruling regime think - as not representing the orientation of the regime. And in
the Arab region one can anticipate easily the blockade against the press that
is not loyal to the regime. In Egypt for example which is largest Arab state,
and who had the pilot press in the region, despite repeated promises from the
Egyptian president not to imprison journalists, but the sword of imprisonment,
and physical attacks still hanging on Journalists necks, and the same thing
applies on Syria and Tunisia, in which several journalists remained in prison.

Therefore, it is not surprising what the
Sudanese military regime is practicing against press freedom. This tyrannical
regime that is languishing under the weight of a mountain of political and
economic problems and social crises and the endless South crises, and the
humanitarian tragedy in Darfur where the Sudanese regime, playing the major role
in such shameful crisis. This regime that involves itself in the ongoing war In
Chad between the Chadian regime and its opponents, and many other problems.
This troubled regime - which once made an alliance with the Islamist nationalists,
then turned against them, and engaged in several peace agreements aimed at
putting an end to the wars yet have not complied with, while the Sudanese
citizens are paying the price for its craziness where living conditions have
deteriorated blatantly, in spite of the economic potentials and natural
resources that Sudan is having, which could have been exploited to allow a
better life for the Sudanese citizen - this regime is always in a war against
the press. Always obstructing and preventing it from performing its mission.

The Sudanese security systems driven by instructions
from the ruling regime, according to the blog of "The Other: My consciousness is yours",
confiscated a number of political newspapers for no reason except that the
security system requested of the newspapers to send a copy of the paper before
printing so that it can approve the issuance, a thing which was impossible to
do for most political newspapers. However, the security system, confiscated all
the newspapers that breached that order, including "Al-Sudani" newspaper
issue of April 16, as well as a number of other Sudanese newspapers for the
same reason.

 The
battle of freedom of the press is witnessing a lot of obstacles in the Sudan, just
like in many countries of the region which are governed by authoritarian
military regimes that represent historical enemies of freedoms, especially
freedom of the press. And this will continue as dictatorship and authoritarian
regimes cannot coexist with freedom of the press. If they did coexist in rare
moments, a price had to be paid expensively by journalists searching for the
truth.