A leading daily newspaper in South Sudan has decided to begin laying off staff after they were closed earlier this month by the National Security Service, a security organ controlled directly by President Salva Kiir.
The National Security Service used threats and verbal orders to shut down the operations of the newspaper, but did not present any court order or written notice effecting the closure. South Sudan’s Association for Media Development (AMDISS) has condemned the closure of the Citizen “following a verbal instruction” to stop printing from 4 August.
Yesterday the management of The Citizen decided to start laying off staff because they were unable to raise revenues do to the ongoing shutdown of the paper imposed by the security personnel. Staff of the paper are normally paid from revenues raised by sales and advertisements. With the paper closed, they no longer have these incomes.
Reportedly, management gave another reason for laying off staff which was that some of the workers live in far-off places within the national capital, Juba, which makes it unsafe to travel home after dark.
Recently a journalist was shot dead after dark in Juba. The valuables that he was carrying were not taken from his body.
Presidential Press Secretary Ateny Wek Ateny has described the decision by the management of the Citizen to lay off staff as unfortunate, denying that the Office of the President supports mistreatment of journalists and media workers in the country.
“We wish to state categorically that these reports that the government, especially the Office of the President is involved in the mistreatment of the journalists and media workers are untrue, unfair and totally not in consonance with the posture of the president on issues concerning press freedom,” he said.
Ateny stressed that the president holds the media in very high regard. However, he also confirmed that the security service was acting on orders to restrict media freedoms but claimed it would only be temporary.
“The Office of the President has received assurances from the Minister of the National Security that no personal liberties of media practitioners or their employees will be unlawfully tampered with and that as soon as there is significant reduction in the level of the security alert and violation, the orders affecting their operation will be relaxed,” Ateny said.
“We live in very trying times which may necessitate that some section or sectors of the society might experience some temporary discomfort in the overall interest of ensuring that the ideals of freedom, peace and security which we all hold dear will not be compromised by a few unscrupulous elements in our midst,” he added.
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