SUDAN NEWS ALERT: Telegraph – Sudan allows BBC broadcasts for first time in ten years

3/9/19: Telegraph – Sudan allows BBC broadcasts for first time in ten years, by Adrian Blomfield

 The Daily Telegraph reports that Sudanese nations are set to hear BBC broadcasts on domestic radio for the first time in nearly a decade after the country’s transitional government ended a ban on the station’s Arabic service.

Until 2010, the BBC’s Arabic Service was arguably the most popular and trusted radio station in Sudan, with an estimated audience of more than 10m listeners.

But Omar Al Bashir’s regime banned it that year – saying that the BBC flouted the law by bringing satellite equipment into the country without permission.

Government critics argued it was more likely that Al Bashir was curtailing independent media ahead of the 2011 referendum of South Sudan’s independence.