South Sudan’s two main daily newspapers as well as editors of several other media houses have threatened a blackout starting Sunday in protest of verbal directives made by the Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Michael Makuei Lueth.
Al Masir and The Citizen, the main daily newspapers printing in Arabic and English, respectively, have both warned that they will shut down rather than comply with government orders which they say are extralegal.
In a statement on Tuesday, Al Masir newspaper announced that it had agreed with other independent media houses including The Citizen and Juba Monitor to halt operations as from the coming Sunday until media laws are passed by the parliament.
“It is predicted that all private media houses in the country will agree on Thursday to boycott government activities at all levels, including the Investment Conference, National Legislative Assembly sittings as well the coming meetings of the National Liberation Council on 9 December,” the newspaper stated on its front page today.
Alongside the newspaper editors, representatives of the main radio networks have also met recently to discuss recent directives by the Ministry of Information. Editors have rejected the attempt by the Ministry of Information to register journalists, refusing to bring requested documents such as CVs to the ministry.
No government circular or other written instructions have been given to media houses by the Information Ministry, but verbal orders were given by the minister on 6 November.
This latest developments follow a meeting on Tuesday between the Information Minister and a committee of four editors of different media houses, who resolved to approach the minister together after two Citizen TV journalists were detained briefly on the weekend for not carrying a government-issued ID card.
According to one participant at the meeting it went “very badly.” Al Masir reported that the minister reiterated his directive that all media houses must comply with “periodic registration of their reporters and subsequently submit the record to South Sudan’s security and intelligence service.”
The Arabic newspaper further described the minister as using “impolite language” during their meeting.
The minister was quoted by The Citizen as saying “so long as the media bills are still not passed by the parliament the operation of the media houses and the journalists in South Sudan have to be regulated by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and any media house or journalist who does not feel comfortable with this arrangement has to stop work and wait for the media bills to come out first then they can resume business.”
Threats against journalists
Throughout the last month several journalists and senior editors have been summoned to the National Security Service (NSS) and questioned extensively.
Additionally, for reasons that were never made explicitly clear, Juba Monitor newspaper was verbally ordered by NSS to stop printing and was forced to do so.
Elsewhere, the manager of a station belonging to one of the main radio networks was ordered by a county commissioner to leave the county, while another station was ordered to produce a letter of no-objection from the national information ministry.
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