“Pens Under Siege” is a comprehensive analysis of press freedom in Sudan covering the 16-month period between Aug. 2011 and Dec. 2012. The report was independently compiled by Sudanese freelance journalist Abdelgadir Mohammed Abdelgadir.

Through interviews with Sudan-based reporters, editors, and publishers, Abdelgadir documented a multitude of press freedom restrictions. Such restrictions, he found, included both highly visible incidences of government-led attacks on the media newspaper closures; suspensions of newspaper licenses; the withholding and/or confiscating of newspaper editions at the printing press; arrests, torture, and harassment of journalists; and deportations of foreign journalists), as well as less public efforts to silence critical journalism (economic “wars” against newspapers, the withholding of government advertisements in media outlets critical of the regime, and censorship of newspapers and websites).