Sudan Deports Egyptian Journalist as Protests Continue Last Updated, 8:07 p.m. CAIRO -- Sudan deported an Egyptian journalist and briefly detained another prominent blogger on Tuesday, as the authorities attempted to stifle a protest movement that started last week. The demonstration came after President Omar Hassan al-Bashir announced spending cuts and austerity measures, like reducing fuel subsidies and raising taxes. Salma El Wardany, a journalist who has been reporting on the protests for Bloomberg News, said in a brief telephone conversation with Agence France-Presse from the airport in Khartoum, the capital, that the authorities had ordered her to leave. According to a series of updates posted on Twitter by her sister, Lina, Ms. Wardany was first informed that she was being deported when she went to renew her press accreditation on Tuesday. After she was initially denied permission to pack before leaving, she was then allowed to collect her things, but only under guard. As the Egyptian blogger and journalist Mohamed Abdelfattah noted, several Sudanese Internet activists thanked Ms. Wardany for her work as she was being forced to leave the country. In addition to filing reports for her news agency, Ms. Wardany, 26, has also used YouTube and Twitter to report on the protests and make contact with the Sudanese Internet activists who have helped to expand the protest movement to several cities. As a result of her work, Ms. Wardany was first detained for several hours last Thursday, along with a Sudanese activist and blogger, Maha El-Sanosi, during a protest in Khartoum. The two women were released later that day, as Egyptian activists and bloggers rallied outside Sudan's embassy in Cairo. On Tuesday afternoon, Ms. Sanosi, who writes on Twitter as Mimzical Mimz, went to the airport in Khartoum to try to say goodbye to Ms. Wardany. Late Tuesday night, several Sudanese activists reported on Twitter that Ms. Sanosi, who had reported on the arrest of activists for the Web site Global Voices three days ago, had herself been arrested in a raid by the security forces. The activists reported, just after this post was originally published, that Ms. Sanosi was released, but without her computer and phone. By deporting Ms. Wardany and arresting several activist bloggers, the authorities seem to be trying to contain the protests by shutting down news sources and communication networks used by the protesters. As the blogger and activist who writes as Sudanese Thinker, Amir Ahmad Nasr, explains in a post on the uprising for Foreign Policy, the authorities are aware of the importance of the Internet to the protest movement. As with neighboring countries, social media and on-the-ground citizen journalism has been absolutely critical in getting important footage, pictures, and stories out to the world. Under the Twitter hashtag #SudanRevolts, Sudanese anti-government, pro-democracy netizens have curated the news coming out of the tightly controlled country while fending off the regime's "electronic jihad" trolls. This is all the more important because the few available independent media outlets in Sudan are small and heavily suppressed. Mr. Nasr also writes that the authorities singled out young activists for brutal punishment last year, when they attempted to join the wave of uprisings sweeping the Arab world: Just take the case of Safia Ishaq, a member of the nonviolent youth resistance movement Girifna: In 2011, after the small Jan. 30 student-led protests inspired by Egypt and Tunisia, she was arrested for her activism and brutally gang-raped by three officers from Bashir's National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), the well-financed and notoriously abusive enforcers responsible for suppressing dissent and protecting the ruling party. Sudan's authorities have also attempted to quell the protest movement by smearing the activists. A pro-government newspaper recently described the protesters as "homosexuals and whores." One of the activists who was detained last week, Usamah Mohamad, who writes on Twitter as simsimt explained why he was taking part in the protest movement despite the risks, in a YouTube message recorded for Al Jazeera just before his arrest.