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Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir said on Thursday that his country was reopening its border with Eritrea, which has been shut for about a year.

As Bashir was speaking in the remote town, the Sudanese Professionals’ Association, a union that has led calls for demonstrations against his rule, called for fresh protests across several Sudanese cities on Thursday afternoon.

“Changing the government and changing the president will not be through WhatsApp nor Facebook, but will be through the ballot box,”

CPJ's 10 most censored countries Eritrea North Korea Turkmenistan Saudi Arabia China Vietnam Iran Equatorial Guinea Belarus Cuba

"The internet was supposed to make censorship obsolete, but that hasn't happened," Joel Simon, CPJ executive director, said in a statement. "Many of the world's most censored countries are highly wired, with active online communities. These governments combine old-style brutality with new technology, often purchased from Western companies, to stifle dissent and control the media,"

The smartphone is more dangerous than Israel to them now.” (In December, Syria banned the iPhone, saying it was detrimental to the country’s stability.)

A report released last week by Paris-based media freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranks Syria 176th in the world in terms of media freedom, a drop from last year's already dismal ranking of 173rd out of 179. When it comes to freedom of the media, Syria is now the worst country in the Middle East, ranking just below Iran. And internationally, it fares better than only Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea, described by the report as “absolute dictatorships that permit no civil liberties.”

In a report issued in November, Reporters Without Borders urged foreign journalists to take utmost care in protecting local sources. The non-governmental organization noted: “If a foreign reporter is arrested in Syria, he faces a few days in detention and then deportation. But Syrians pay a much higher price for their involvement.”