A freelance journalist has been arrested and detained by police authorities in South Sudan’s Rumbek town of Western Lakes State for covering a corruption case against the former governor and his deputy, a civil society activist said.
Former governor John Deng Mamer and his deputy William Koji Kerjok are accused and charged with the alleged embezzlement of more than SSP 3 million secondary school funds for teachers in the state.
Hakim Chipuonyuch, the chairperson of the Civil Society Organisations' Network (CiSON) in Western Lakes State told Radio Tamazuj that the authorities on Thursday morning arrested Mabor Riak Magok, a freelancer and member of the Union of Journalists of South Sudan. Riak has been covering the case since June 2019.
“This morning he was arrested by the court police with orders from the high court. When I went there, there was different information about who arrested him. So the police inspector in the high court told me that it was the deputy governor who ordered his arrest,” he said.
Hakim added that Riak has been accused of covering the arrest of Gabriel Kuc Abiei, a representative of the nine secondary school teachers in the trial.
“He was given an arrest warrant for the last two days as a result of his coverage on the story of teachers incentives mismanaged by the former governor. There was a video snapshot that we took and then he made a story out of that. And the video was about the representative of the teachers who was representing the case in the high court,” he added.
The activist said the journalist is being detained at the high court cell and has been denied bail.
CiSON has called for the immediate release of Riak saying his arrest and detention are illegal.