Yakani says watchdog will monitor civic space after state security powers reduced

JUBA, FEBRUARY 22^nd 2023 (SUDANS POST) – South Sudan’s prominent activist Edmund Yakani has said that an initiative from the Community Empowerment fort Progress Organization (CEPO) will monitor the civic space in the country after powers of the national security service were reduced.

In statements to journalists during a press conference on Tuesday, cabinet minister Martin Elia Lomuro said that President Salva Kiir Mayardit and First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny agreed to scrap a controversial section in the National Security Service Act 2014 (amended 2019).

The section allows the National Security Service to arrest and detain suspects without necessarily obtaining warrant of arrest from a court. The intelligence agency is also allowed under that section to monitor communications without legal warrant.

In a statement to Sudans Post, Yakani who is the Executive Director of CEPO welcomed the agreement between the two main signatories of the revitalized peace agreement and said that CEPO’s Civic Space Watch initiative (CSW) would be monitoring how civil rights are being respected after the deal.

“CEPO program of Civic Space Watch welcomes the decision on abolishing the power of national security services arresting without warrant of arrest through the decision of the presidency dated 21 February, 2023,” Yakani said in the statement this afternoon.

“Civic Space Watch will be monthly tracking and reporting the implementation of this Democratic decision of the presidency in line with presidency instructions to states governors, chief administrators and county commissioners on opening of political and civic space and the 6th Governors Forum resolution number 14 on civic and point space,” he added.

The prominent activist further said that “The tracking and reporting of the presidency decisions on opening of civic and political space will be nationwide and reported monthly for the sake of embracing democratic practices. Unrestricted civic and political space have a greater role in making political transitional process successful.”

He also said that the tracking initiative “will encourage the public to report any violation of the presidency decisions on civic and political space.”