South Sudan journalists held for failing to cover presidential speech

by admin
Jan 5, 2013

Two state broadcast journalists from South Sudan were arrested on Sunday for failing to cover a presidential speech, reports Reuters.

The two senior staff, named as Louis Pasquale and Ashab Khamis, were arrested by the state government of Western Bahr El Ghazal for "administrative issues", having failed to cover a presidential visit to the town of Wau, close to the Sudan border, last month.

State information minister Derrick Alfred Uya told Reuters:

"They were arrested simply because when the president arrived here in Wau on December 22, 2012, he gave a very, very important speech,"

New York-based media watchdog, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said that two had probably been arrested as part of a campaign to stop the media from investigating recent unrest in Wau when soldiers shot dead 10 protesters, triggering more violence in the town.

Persecution of journalists by security services has been a persistent concern in South Sudan since its seccession in 2011, with the country being ranked 111th out 179th in Reporters without Borders' 2011-2012 press freedom index.

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