KHARTOUM: A reporter for the international news service Bloomberg has fled Sudan afraid for his safety after being threatened, assaulted and arbitrarily detained, a watchdog says.
“Michael Gunn told CPJ that he fled the country on July 2 fearing for his life,” said a statement from the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
The incident comes about a year after Sudan deported Bloomberg correspondent Salma El Wardany, an Egyptian. She was detained while trying to cover anti-government protests.
Gunn, 35, a British national, declined comment when reached by AFP yesterday.
But Bloomberg spokesman Ty Trippet said in a statement: “When a reporter is doing his job as he was and is attacked for no other reason, it’s cause for concern.”
Gunn told CPJ that plainclothes agents grabbed him while he covered a June 29 meeting of the opposition Umma Party.
“He said he was hit several times, his bag and pockets searched, and his shirt pulled over his head before he was thrown into the back of a truck with several Sudanese citizens,” CPJ said in a statement late Wednesday.
Gunn reported to CPJ that he was taken away, blindfolded and interrogated for three hours about what he was doing in Sudan.
“He said he was slapped several times during the interrogation and that he was ordered to unlock his smartphone. Gunn said that after the interrogation was over, he was put back in a truck and released on a nearby street,” CPJ said.
Gunn told the watchdog that he was accredited by the Sudanese government and had been reporting in the country since November. AFP
