Africa-Press – South-Sudan. Amnesty warns of “new repression wave” in South Sudan
“We are witnessing a new wave of repression in South Sudan targeting the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly,” said Amnesty International’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa, Deprose Muchina.
The crackdown followed an announcement last month by the People’s Coalition for Civil Action calling for a peaceful uprising.
The world’s newest country has been plagued by chronic instability since independence in 2011, when a coalition of civil society organizations called on the government to step down.
The authorities have taken a hard line against such demands in recent weeks, arresting eight activists, as well as arresting three journalists and two workers from a pro-democracy non-profit, according to rights groups.
The Anti-Political Corruption Committee called on the masses to join the peaceful protests last Monday in the capital, Juba, where the authorities described the demonstration as “illegal” and deployed heavily armed security forces to monitor the streets for any sign of dissent.
“Peaceful protests should be facilitated rather than suppressed or prevented with arrests, harassment, massive security deployments, or other punitive measures,” Mushina added in a statement.
The human rights organization indicated that many activists have faced harassment since the aborted demonstration, “with some suspecting that they are being monitored by the security forces.”
The authorities also shut down a radio station and a research center linked to the protests.
Hostility towards the Media
Meanwhile, human rights organization Reporters Without Borders condemned, on Friday, the closure of the radio station and called for an “immediate end to the harassment of South Sudanese reporters.”
“The authorities’ open hostility towards the media highlights how difficult it is for journalists to cover politics in South Sudan, where at least ten have been killed since 2014,” said Arnaud Froger, head of the organisation’s Africa office.
South Sudan is ranked 139th out of 180 countries in the 2021 World Press Freedom Index issued by Reporters Without Borders.
For its part, the United States, the European Union, Britain and Norway, in a statement issued on Friday, urged the government of South Sudan to protect “the rights of citizens to express their opinions in a peaceful manner without fear of arrest.”
Since independence from Sudan in 2011, the young nation has been in the midst of a chronic economic and political crisis, struggling to recover from the effects of a post-independence civil war that left nearly 400,000 dead.
Although the 2018 ceasefire and power-sharing agreement between President Salva Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar remains largely in place little progress is being made in meeting the terms of the peace process.
