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S. Sudan: Media fights for free press in new nation
[Arab News] Six weeks after Southern Sudan voted for independence in a widely praised referendum, security agents stormed the region's first printing press and tossed in the calaboose a top journalist, the latest assault on news hounds fighting to create a free press here.Newsman Nhial Bol said he was jugged last month as he gave Norwegian diplomats a tour of his new press, which was partly paid for by Norway's embassy and took years to build. He said he was criticizing the government's repressive media politics at the very moment two dozen plainclothes agents armed with AK-47s arrived. The men told the diplomats to leave. Bol said the agents put him in the truck and drove him around for two hours before he was released without charge. Bol later said he believes the harassment was retaliatory. He had recently argued in a column in The Citizen, one of the few publications in the southern capital of Juba that regularly criticizes the government, that citizens' freedoms are threatened by security forces that operate with impunity and no legal mandate. Journalists in Juba have been pushing for years for the government to pass freedom of information laws and laws that protect journalists from intimidation. Ironically, the day before Bol's arrest, the government pledged to pass media laws before the south declares independence on July 9. Southern news hounds said in a statement a year ago, in the run-up to Sudan's first multiparty elections in 24 years, that working as journalists was like "playing football without rules." Last year, police raided two radio stations that interviewed opposition candidates. A Mexican nun who managed a Catholic station was tossed in the calaboose. David De Dau, executive director of the Agency for Independent Media in Juba, said he is not optimistic about the south's prospects for press freedom, despite the vice president's pledges that media laws would be enacted by July. De Dau noted that Sudanese journalists are often discouraged from taking on contentious topics due to the fear of arrest and legal fees -- particularly since many journalists are not salaried and earn only $15 per story. "The media situation here is not a free one," he said. Tom Rhodes of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said the importance of a watchdog press in Southern Sudan can not be stressed enough, particularly since one political party dominates the government. He noted the region has never had an independent press. "Accustomed to 22 years of civil war, politicians and citizens alike will need to understand that journalists with probing questions should not be considered spies or enemies of the state simply for carrying out their profession," he said. Posted by: Fred 2011-03-19 |
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