An official within the National Security Service of South Sudan today took measures to detain a radio news editor and shut down a Catholic radio station in Juba, without giving written explanation.
Madut Wol, Director of Information at the National Security Service, is the official responsible for ordering the closure of Bakhita Radio today and for the detention of the journalist, according to an official at the presidency.
The official said that neither the President, nor the Ministry of Information, nor any court of law had anything to do with the order to close down the station.
Presidential Spokesman Ateny Wek told Radio Tamazuj on Saturday that the station was shut down “on the grounds of national security.”
He explained that the radio station had failed to report on the fighting yesterday according to the statement given by the army, which said that rebels attacked their positions yesterday. Instead, he alleged, they reported that the army was responsible for the aggression.
Bakhita Radio said their journalist was arrested for “balancing a news story about the fresh fighting in Bentiu, Unity State.”
Another source said that the morning news bulletin of Radio Bakhita had quoted from the website Sudan Tribune, which included remarks by officials on both sides of the conflict.
According to Ateny Wek, spokesman at the Office of the President, President Salva Kiir is not aware of the decision, nor is the Ministry of Information involved.
He said it was only the security service involved, saying he had spoken to Madut Wol about the matter. The National Security Service would decide how to handle the case of the journalist, he said.
“If they find him not to be guilty they will release him,” Ateny Wek said.
According to sources at Bakhita Radio, the National Security Service sent security agents on Saturday morning who stormed the offices of the radio station, “closed it down, arresting and detaining journalists.”
All but one journalist were later released.
As of early evening on Saturday, News Editor Ochan David Nicholas was in detention, while the station’s director Albino Tokwaro had gone to the National Security Service headquarters together with the secretary-general of Juba Diocese to try to secure his release.
According to journalists who were taken with Ochan David Nicholas to the NSS headquarters but later released said that “the closure and the detention was due to reflecting the view of SPLM/A in Opposition.”
The station director was reportedly asked by the security service to sign a letter of apology. As of 5:30 p.m., the station remained off-air, and had been so since sometime shortly after 8:00 a.m., when the morning news bulletin was broadcast.
The National Security Service reports to the Presidency, nominally through a Minister of National Security.
Ateny Wek, asked whether the security service had taken this measure at the level of the ministry or at the level of the security itself, said the decision was taken at the level of the security service itself.
File photo: National Security Service headquaters in Juba, South Sudan
Rights groups slam ‘abuses’ against media by South Sudan’s National Security Service (1 Aug.)