The International non-for-profit organization for the defense journalists, Reporters without Borders (RSF) has condemned the increased wave of harassment of journalists and media outlets in South Sudan.
Following calls by a civil society group in South Sudan for the resignation of the country’s president, Salva Kiir, and his Vice President, Riek Machar, the government perceives that the media in South Sudan support the calls.
One of the targeted media institutions, Radio Jonglei remains closed since August 27, when the station was raided and shut down by security officials, who also briefly detained three of its journalists- Matuor Mabior Anyang, Ayuen Garang Kur, and Deng Gai Deng. Officers of South Sudan’s National Security also confiscated phones belonging to the journalists.
According to RSF, the official reason for the raid was to prevent the station from continuing to broadcast because its journalists were suspected of sympathizing with the People’s Coalition for Civil Action (PCCA), and were accused of broadcasting a call for a protest that was supposed to have taken place on August 30.
The radio station’s director, Anyang had told RSF that, in the days prior to the raid, he received several calls from security officials summoning him to a meeting and ordering him to stop covering political stories.
RSF said the raid on Radio Jonglei is the latest in a series of reprisals against journalists since the start of July, when Alfred Angasi, a news presenter with the state-owned South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC), was arrested and held arbitrarily for more than three weeks for refusing to read part of a presidential decree during a news program.
It said Al Jazeera reporter Ajou Luol was also briefly detained as a result of an argument with security agents when President Kiir gave a speech at the opening of parliament on 30 August. Two other journalists who were present at the time, Maura Ajak and Yom Manas, were threatened and roughed up, and their equipment was seized, when they tried to boycott the session in protest against Luol’s detention.
Arnaud Froger, the head of RSF’s Africa desk the wave of arrests and threats against journalists in recent weeks is worrisome.
“The undisguised hostility of the authorities towards the media highlights how difficult it is for journalists to cover politics in South Sudan, where at least ten have been killed since 2014,” he said.
“We call for an immediate end to the harassment of South Sudanese reporters and media.”
The group also reported that online news and information are being closely monitored and censored, while internet access was cut throughout the country on 30 August, the day of the planned anti-government protest, which the armed forces prevented from taking place.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a media director told RSF he was fined the equivalent of several thousand euros a few weeks ago for posting videos on Facebook that the authorities regarded as “malicious.”
South Sudan is ranked 139th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2021 World Press Freedom Index.