Sudan closes Al-Jazeera office in Khartoum

Doaa Emam

A few days prior to the ousting of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, Qatar paid $1 billion to keep the Islamists in power. Therefore, Doha deems it very difficult to accept a decision by the Sudanese authorities closing the Khartoum office of broadcaster Al-Jazeera.

The Qatar-based broadcaster, which incites against the Sudanese army, said Sudanese security officers informed it of the decision by the Sudanese Transitional Military Council to shut its office down.

Al-Jazeera has taken sides with the Muslim Brotherhood and Islamists in all the Arab countries, where uprisings and revolutions erupted.  The channel has been known for inciting against all Arab armies and the public opinion.

Al Jazeera Center for Studies and Al Jazeera Mubasher organized a forum titled: “The Sudanese Revolution: The Challenges of Transition and Re-Building the State”.

The forum was attended by the Political Secretary of the Popular Congress Party, Idris Suleiman, who is affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.  Satea Ahmed Elhaj, member of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces, Mohamed Esmat Yahya, politician and member of the Declaration of Freedom and Change Forces, and Ahmed Abushouk, professor of modern and contemporary history at Qatar University, also took part in the forum.

The forum discussed the latest developments in Sudan after toppling the government of al-Bashir as well as the country’s paths of transformation, and probe into the methods that could be promising in the process of transferring power to civilians.

The channel described the Sudanese army as junta and criticized recent visit by Lieutenant General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the head of Transitional Military Council, to Egypt and United Arab Emirates, which are part of the Arab Quartet, which had suspended relations with Doha due to its support to terrorism.