Editor of Sudanese Newspaper Kidnapped, Brutally Murdered

By: E&P Staff The editor of a privately-owned Sudanese daily newspaper was taken from his home by masked men on Tuesday night and brutally murdered today, according to the press watchdog organization Reporters Without Borders.

Police found the body of Mohamed Taha, editor of the al-Wifaq paper, about 50 miles south of the capital. He had been beheaded by his captors.

Taha was no stranger to controversy, having been tried for "blasphemy" last year after offending a Muslim fundamentalist group, Ansar al-Sunnah, with an article about an Islamic manuscript from over 500 years ago entitled "the unknown in the life of the prophet." The document, apparently originally written by Al-Maqrizi, a Muslim historian, cast doubt on the ancestry of the prophet Mohammad, saying that his father was not called Abdallah but Abdel Lat, or "slave of Lat," a pre-Islamic idol.

The imams of Khartoum organizaed major demonstrations in the wake of the article and demanded that the journalist be executed. His paper was suspended for two months as a result of the incident.

Reporters Without Borders issued a statement expressing solidarity with journalists in Khartoum. "The reforms introduced to restore peace and justice to Sudan will be put at risk if nothing is done to punish this crime," the group said. "The Sudanese authorities must do their utmost to see that light is shed on this tragedy, so that both the perpetrators and those who instigated it are brought to trial."