Maridi Community Radio FM Manager Detained and Released

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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The national security personnel on 1^st Jan. 2015 arbitrarily arrested and detained Mr. Benedictson Ezikia James, radio manager of Maridi FM for 20 hours then released him. Community Empowerment for Progress Organization-CEPO in strong terms condemned this arbitrary act and urged the state political leadership to ensure that freedom of press and media is not interfered with and if any journalists or media committed an offence let legal steps be taken against the journalist or media not arbitrary arresting and detaining journalist as case of Mr. Benedictson.

This arbitrary arrest and detention of Mr. Benedictson is a violation of the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan, 2011 article 24 (2,3) which stated “(2) All levels of government shall guarantee the freedom of the press and other media as shall be regulated by law in a democratic society.(3)All media shall abide by professional ethics”. Mr. Benedictson was arbitrarily arrested and detained because he rejected to receive recovered speeches of Maridi County Commissioner and Deputy Minister of Foreigners Affairs during celebrating the New Year, 2015 in Maridi from state employed Journalist.

Mr. Benedictson told the state journalist that we have recorded the speeches already.  For this purpose the personnel of national security intervene by arbitrarily arresting and detaining him for 20 hours then release him without any charges.

CEPO was surprised to see that Western Equatoria state that has registered clean records in year 2014 on upholding the freedom of press and media is now the first state to start registering violations of Transitional Constitution of South Sudan article 24 in early 2015. This is a bad start for Western Equatoria state as in our records Western Equatoria state is the only state with no case of violation of freedom of press or freedom of expression. Added Edmund Yakani

CEPO is calling upon the state authorities to ensure that with the current context where we have serious political developments and events taking place on the national affairs such as search for peace, reconciliation, trauma healing, justice and accountability the freedom of press and right to access information and freedom of expression are paramount rights that require no arbitrary intervention. Applied the laws of the country in case of n offended committed    

About CEPO

CEPO is engaged in the areas of peace, conflict mitigation, human rights, and rule of law, livelihood, governance and democratic transformation. It is neutral, non-partisan, non-religious, non-race entity. CEPO is based on the principle of community empowerment and inclusive participation. Its core values are Commitment, Accountability and transparency (CAT)