Authored by Rick Moran via PJMedia.com,
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has been in office since the country became independent in 2011.
The 71-year-old had been rumored to be in ill health for months, but during a photo-op in December, Kiir was shown standing during the nation’s national anthem and wetting himself in a most embarrassing way.
Six staffers for the national broadcasting company in South Sudan were arrested by the security service. There were immediate complaints from the trade union representing the staffers that the law, which gives the government the power to hold someone for 24 hours before taking them before a judge, is being violated.
The staffers are being charged with having knowledge of the unauthorized release of “certain footage.”
“If there is a prima facie case of professional misconduct or offense then let authorities expedite an administrative or legal process to address the issue in a fair, transparent [sic] and in accordance with the law,” union chair Oyet Patrick Charles said.
A journalists’ union in #South_Sudan asserted Friday that six staffers with the national broadcaster are detained in connection with footage apparently showing the country’s president urinating on himself during an event. https://t.co/fXqyiAEQjP
— Patrick Heinisch (@PatrickHeinisc1) January 6, 2023
The Associated Press reports that “The presidential election was recently postponed again, this time to late 2024, amid the slow implementation of a 2018 peace deal ending a five-year civil war.”
There hasn’t been a presidential election in South Sudan since the independence, and Kiir claimed he did not want “to rush you into an election that will take us back to war,” he said.
The national security services in South Sudan are making a habit of arresting people and holding them indefinitely.
Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s sub-Saharan Africa representative, said the arrests match a “pattern of security personnel resorting to arbitrary detention whenever officials deem coverage unfavourable.”
“Authorities should unconditionally release these six SSBC employees and ensure that they can work without further intimidation or threat of arrest,” Mumo said.
So South Sudan’s agony will continue with a president who is at the very least incontinent and almost certainly losing the ability to lead his country.
