Interpreters boycott translation of Mama Amira’s defamatory case video over ‘shameful’ remarks

JUBA – At least two interpreters hired by Juba high court to translate the alleged defamatory video of Mama Amira Ali’s regarded by senior SPLM-IO official as defamatory have refused to work on it saying it contains remarks that young people like them cannot translate before court sitting attended by elders.

This comes following the resumption of court case between Mrs. Ali and Nyenagwek Kuol, the SPLM-IO’s chairperson in the disputed Abyei border area. The video was aired by Ali last year while she was still in the United States, but was deleted from her engaging Facebook page after learning of lawsuit triggered by the video.

Speaking to Sudans Post this afternoon, one of the two translators who requested not to be named said they were hired by the high court in Juba and when they arrived at the court to translate the video, they gave their apology at the second minute of the video because of remarks they cannot translate of a mother.

“There are many people in the court room and the video was played. We went on for translating the first two minutes but when it became tense, we couldn’t proceed because there are women, elderly people and senior citizens in the court and the remarks utter by the accused were derogatory and shameful that a mother in the person of Mama Amira Ali should not utter,” he said.

The translator further said they “informed the judge because the video cannot be translated. It is a disaster when you translate something that you cannot, as a young man and son, say before your mother or imagine your mother saying it because it would highlight how bad it is really to do that before people of different ages.”

Nyenagwek Kuol who filed the lawsuit confirmed to Sudans Post the boycott by translators and said a new interpreter has been hired by the court and the sitting which could not proceed because of translation issues is due to resume on Saturday after which the judge is expected to take a decision.