A combined force of the National Security Service (NSS) and police on Thursday morning arrested a female Toposa language news anchor who works for Singaita FM in Kapoeta town in Eastern Equatoria State.
According to sources, the detained journalist, Roselyn Nakopit Lotyam, was picked up from her home for covering the arrival of the Toposa Youth Association (TOYA) acting chairperson, Ngoya Yaba, at the Kapoeta town airstrip on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, a section of the youth association’s members held a general assembly, ostensibly with the blessing of Eastern Equatoria State Governor Louis Lobong, and re-elected Lolib Carl Peter who was recently impeached by the TOYA executive for alleged failure to perform, as the association’s chairperson.
Several youths, including TOYA acting Chairperson Ngoya Yaba, who was welcomed by a mammoth crowd of youth on Wednesday at the Kapoeta airstrip were arrested on Wednesday night by security personnel following the parallel general assembly the day before.
The Singaita FM acting station manager, Karisio William Lonya, told Radio Tamazuj Thursday that the security personnel went to the radio station and when they did not find Nakopit, they went and picked her from her home.
“The driver called and said that Nakopit has been arrested. These guys (security) first came to the (station) compound and found she had not come, so they rushed to her home and picked her from there. We really do not know what is going on,” Lonya said.
A Singaita FM staff member who preferred anonymity for fear of reprisals said Nakopit might have been picked up for covering the arrival of TOYA acting chairperson Yaba.
“Roselyn Nakopit is our news anchor for Toposa language and she has not done anything but what might be behind all this is due to the coverage of an event yesterday (Wednesday) at the airstrip,” the source said. “You see there is confusion here. There are two executive bodies of the Toposa Youth Association. I think the other one is hosted by the government and the other one is not.”
The source added: “There was another chairperson elected on Tuesday and then there is another TOYA chairperson. Remember there was a document flying that the TOYA chairperson was impeached. It is that impeached chairperson who formed an interim body and then he was re-elected again on Tuesday.”
The Singaita FM staff member said the security personnel did not harass them but only asked for Nakopit.
“It was a mix of national security and police. The station is working. There were no threats,” according to the source. “They just came and asked if she had come and our security guard told them that she has not yet come. A few minutes later we saw them going in their car with our colleague.”
On 10 December, armed personnel from the National Security Service (NSS) stormed the Singaita FM radio station’s premises with padlocks and ordered the staff to shut down their computers before locking down studio and radio offices.
A week later on 17 December, the inspector of police in Kapoeta town, Gen. Garang Deng Jorkuch, confirmed that the radio station had been reopened. He explained that the station was closed because the radio did not cover an event by officials from the ministry of general education who visited in October to assess land for the Equatoria International University.
At the time, the Eastern Equatoria State information minister, Patrick Oting Cypriano, said he directed that the radio station be reopened but that there were issues that his office had to resolve with the Singaita FM management.
Charles Okullu, the executive director of Peace Link Foundation (PLF) and the former chairperson of the civil society network in Eastern Equatoria demanded that the journalist be released immediately and unconditionally and asked the authorities to find better ways of resolving the issues of the youth.
“The arrest will not help but getting the youth together to address root causes of all these crises in Kapoeta will be helpful,” Okullu said. “If we continue allowing the situation to go like that, it will destabilize the community and the youth.”