Nairobi — Two Southern Sudan newspapers were suspended on Monday for disseminating information viewed as hostile to the government.

According to media owners, the Sudanese regulator suspended the two paper indefinitely. "They say we have been suspended indefinitely," Izzadine Abdul Rassuou, Managing Editor of The Citizen said Monday. "What they are doing, they don't have a right to do that."

The suspension of The Citizen follows the closure last week of The Sudan Tribune, which was ordered to cede, but in word, the running of the paper to the Press Council.

The Citizen is one of the largest circulation English dailies.

It's founder, Nhial Bol and Sudan Tribune Editor-in-Chief William Ezekiel were also founders of The Khartoum Monitor, alongside that paper's Editor-in-Chief Alfred Taban.

Nhial Bol, the newspaper's Editor-in-Chief, who is based in Juba confirmed the suspension.

Sudan newspapers, including those operating largely in the south, print in the north for lack of a printing press in the autonomous region.

According to the newspaper, the national regulator didn't give any specific reason for the suspension.

"They are saying that we are not cooperating with them," Izzadine said. "I asked them what cooperation? And they did not say."

On Monday, the newspaper was still trying to get a formal statement from the Press Council spelling out clearly any rules that the paper had violated.

"I want them to give us a written statement," said Izzadine.

Paper seized

Sudan authorities increased newspaper censorship following the May attack in Abyei.

For the seventeenth time last week, Sudan security officials confiscated and issued tough new conditions to the Sudan Tribune newspaper.

In a letter to The Tribune, the Secretary General of the National Press Council, Hashim el-Jaz, issued what he called the 'final warning' to the newspaper, saying that failure to comply with the conditions, the newspaper would be shutdown.

The Press Council says that the head office must be based in Khartoum - and not Juba, where the newspaper, early in the year, opened its new office.

"I have just come out of a meeting with the security guys," Ezekiel said, "there is no progress".

The Press Council wants The Tribune to replace the old Editorial Board with a new one to be supervised by the Press Council.

The regulator further wants the firm to stop employing non-graduates.

The Sudan Tribune's long-running battle with the Press Council dates back to May when the Editor-in-Chief was summoned over an editorial that illustrated why the National Congress Party had to take full blame for the assault on the oil-rich area of Abyei, and later for supporting a statement by Sudan Cabinet Affairs Minister, also Sudan People's Liberation Movement Secretary General, Pagan Amum, that Sudan is a failed state.

The closure of The Tribune followed a case the newspaper filed in the Constitutional Court last month demanding compensation and a stop to harassment of the media.