The management of Eye Radio FM is negotiating with South Sudan’s Media Authority to resume operation since it was shut down by National Security Service officers last week, a leading civil society activist said.

The Media Authority is a government body established to hear defamation and other cases against media workers.

Edmund Yakani, CEPO’s Executive Director, told Radio Tamazuj yesterday that his organization came up with a proposal for dialogue between the management of Eye Radio and the Media Authority to resume broadcast.

Yakani pointed out that the government body promised to reopen Eye Radio today. “We held a dialogue between the media authority and the management of Eye Radio, and they assured us that the station would resume broadcast on Monday,” said Yakani.

For its part, Eye Radio itself confirmed that the station is still off-air for the fourth day today since it was shut down by security officials on Friday.

“At the moment, the management of Eye Radio is following up with authorities with the view to immediately resolve this matter,” the management said in a statement.

“We will continue to update our listeners and the general public if new information becomes available or when the station resumes broadcast,” it added.

The Chief Executive Officer of Eye Media, a South Sudanese NGO managing Eye Radio, announced that the shutdown was due to a short news clip of Riek Machar played about a month ago when Machar was leaving Khartoum for South Africa.   

Meanwhile, The Association for Media Development in South Sudan (AMDISS) issued a statement condemning the closure of Eye Radio and called on the security to reopen the radio immediately and unconditionally.

The association stressed on the need for dialogue to amicably resolve any issue that might have led to the closure of the radio. AMDISS urged the security to leave all matters related to media for the Media Authority.