CEPO condemns ‘unlawful’ restrictions against media in Jonglei

JUBA  – South Sudan’s civil society watchdog Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) has condemned last weekend’s Jonglei State government decision to require local radio stations to seek approval before broadcasting programs.

In a directive issued on November 4, the Jonglei government ministry of information and communication said that all local radio stations must seek approval from the ministry before airing public service announcements (PSAs) or talk shows.

The ministry has also stated that it will provide guidelines to radio stations on how to diversify their programming and ensure that all three dominant languages of Dinka, Nuer, and Anuak are represented.

In a statement today, the Executive Director of CEPO Edmund Yakani described the directive as an unlawful restriction on the freedom of the press in Jonglei State.

“CEPO strongly condemned the unlawful restriction of freedom of expression in Jonglei state by the state order of the State Ministry of Information,” said Yakani.

“This order violates bill of rights article 32 and presidency directives dated 22 October 2022 to states governors, chief administrators of administrative areas and commissioners of counties on opening of civic and political space read together with 6th States Governors and Chief Administrators Forum resolution 14 on urging political leaders at all levels to embrace consultative criticism, media and freedom of expression,” he added.

The prominent civil society activist said that “it is essential that political leadership at all levels should embrace productive and consultative criticism and freedom of expression for winning public trust and confidence for meaningful and effective engagement on the forthcoming political transitional processes.”

He said that CEPO’s civic space watch “is observing faster raising of political decisions on shrinking civic space at the states level and this is disturbing and strongly contributing to damaging the image of the country before the international community and recently when the United Nations Security Council visited the country one of the highest raised concerns was the shrinking of the civic space.”