It is a video which is at the origin of the runaway of the affair. Six journalists from the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation (SSBC) public television were arrested on Tuesday (December 3rd) in South Sudan after the broadcast of images which would show President Salva Kiir urinating on him during an official ceremony, announces the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)which demands their release.
The journalists were arrested by National Security Service agents, according to New York-based CPJ, citing local media and other sources familiar with the matter, in a statement released Friday evening.
They are under investigation after the broadcast of a video, which went viral in December on social networks, which would show the 71-year-old head of state urinating on him during an official ceremony. The video posted on Youtubeand still visible on Saturday, shows President Kiir, wearing his black hat and light gray suit, with a dark stain spreading over his left leg.
“Arbitrary detention”
An SSBC television official, quoted by the independent radio station Tamazuj, claimed that the channel had not broadcast the sequence in question. These arrests correspond “a tendency for security forces to resort to arbitrary detention when officials believe that media coverage is unfavorable”said CPJ’s representative for sub-Saharan Africa, Muthoko Mumo. “Authorities should unconditionally release journalists and ensure they can work without being intimidated or threatened with arrest”he added.
The South Sudan Journalists Syndicate also called for the “quick end” investigations concerning the six journalists, suspected “to have had knowledge of the broadcasting of a “precise sequence” (from the video) to the public “. “Whether there has been professional misconduct or an infraction”the authorities must “deal with it in a fair, transparent and lawful manner”he continued in a press release.
Unstable political situation
After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan descended into a civil war between sworn enemies Riek Machar and Salva Kiir, which left nearly 400,000 dead and millions displaced between 2013 and 2018. signed in 2018 provides for the principle of power-sharing within a government of national unity, with Mr. Kiir as president and Mr. Machar as vice-president. But it remains largely unenforced, due to lingering feuds between the two rivals, leaving the country plagued by violence and chronic instability.
The UN and the international community regularly accuse South Sudanese leaders of maintaining a status quo, stoking violence, suppressing political freedoms and embezzling public funds.