Sudan shuts down pro-government newspaper

KHARTOUM, Sunday (Reuters) - Sudan has shut down one of the main pro-government newspapers and ordered its editor to refrain from writing after he called for a senior politician from the south to be killed, newspapers reported on Sunday.

The decision was unusual because the Arabic-language al-Wifaq newspaper was an Islamist-leaning publication close to Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir's National Congress Party, Sudan's dominant party which has its powerbase in the north.

A peace deal ending a war between the north and south was signed in 2005, but tensions still simmer and have sometimes led to clashes between north and south Sudanese forces including over disputed boundary areas with oil reserves.

Al-Wifaq's editor, Isaac Ahmed Fadlallah, is a well-known media figure in Sudan who also wrote for another pro-government newspaper al-Ra'ed.

In an editorial published on Saturday, Fadlallah called for the killing of a senior official from the Sudan People's Liberation Movement, Yasir Arman, because of recent comments he made during a parliamentary discussion on a criminal law.

Newspaper reports said Arman had objected to non-Muslims being subjected to sharia law, specifically in reference to flogging as punishment for adultery.

Imposition of Islamic law across the whole of Sudan in 1983 fuelled the north-south conflict. The north is predominantly Muslim while the south is mostly Christian or animist.

Newpapers, citing the state-run Sudan Media Centre, said the newspaper closure was ordered by General Salah Mohammed, head of the Sudanese National Security and Intelligence apparatus.

Earlier this month, Sudanese authorities executed nine men found guilty in the 2006 murder of al-Wifaq's then owner, Mohamed Taha Mohamed Ahmed. The nine were from Darfur in west Sudan where a separate conflict erupted in 2003.