South Sudan government puts another nail in press freedom’s coffin
In its latest move against press freedom, South Sudan has threatened journalists broadcasting interviews with rebels involved in the country’s civil war.
“We are shutting your media houses down if you interview any rebel here to disseminate his or her plans and policies within South Sudan,” Information Minister Michael Makuei said on Monday.
“If you can go as far as interviewing the rebels to come and disseminate their filthy ideas to the people and poison their minds, that is negative agitation,” he said, adding, “You either join them, or else we put you where you will not be talking.”
Reporters Without Borders says South Sudan had slipped down six places on its annual press freedom rankings, listing it as the 125th worst nation out of 180.
South Sudan plunged into violence in December 2013, when fighting erupted between troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and defectors led by his former deputy, Riek Machar, around the capital, Juba.
The conflict soon turned into an all-out war between the army and the defectors, with the violence taking on an ethnic dimension that pitted the president’s Dinka tribe against Machar’s Nuer ethnic group.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the civil war in the past 14 months.
According to UN statistics, fatal clashes in South Sudan have displaced around 1.9 million people, with thousands taking refuge in the camps of the UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
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