South Sudan security forces detain another journalist over president’s viral video

JUBA, JANUARY 17^TH 2023 (SUDANS POST) – South Sudan security forces have yet again detained another journalist in connection to a viral video in which the country’s president, Salva Kiir Mayardit, appeared to be wetting on himself in public during the opening of the first phase of the Juba-Bahr el Ghazal highway at Terekeka last month, a SSBC source told Sudans Post this morning.

In a brief social media statement on Monday afternoon, journalist Chol Duang, a former SSBC anchor, said Garang who was once a news anchor at the SSBC had been missing since 11:00AM Monday and never heard from him since.

“Journalist Garang John has disappeared since 11:00AM, today; his contacts are unreachable and whereabouts unknown. I will share with you names and last contact of the person who called him before his disappearance,” he wrote in a statement on his Facebook page.

Speaking to Sudans Post this morning, a journalist working for the SSBC said on condition of anonymity that one of the six journalists who were detained earlier this month implicated Garang John in the publication of the video of the president during investigations and that security agents had to take him in for questioning to response to the allegations that the video was first sent to him.

“One of those journalists who were arrested last time said that Garang John knew how the video made it to the public space on social media. The security are just apprehending him to answer as to if there is a prove he really knew how the video made it to social media and this thing is realty becoming serious and no one is safe now. Anytime you can be called in,” he said.

The journalist who said he was searched by security forces just before the mass arrest of journalists said that “it appear that some journalists are close to admitting roles in the dissemination of the video of the president and this will put the lives of most of them at a greater risk if the National Security Service is going to get a prove that some of those arrested have participated in the ‘character assassination’ against the president.”

However, another journalist who said he is familiar with the ongoing investigations of the six journalists said that there is no indication that some of journalists being detained have confessed to disseminating the video of the president and that “none of them has said anything against Garang John and his arrest maybe a different case, not connected into the video.”

Separately, a source who is close to Garang Johns said that shortly before his disappearance, journalist Augustina Albino Agok of the SSBC called him for a “normal friendly meeting” at 11:00AM and that no one heard from journalist since he left for that meeting.

“He went for a meeting with a journalist working for SSBC. This guy is called Augustino Albino Agok. He went to the meeting at 11 AM and it was a normal friendly meeting so Garang John did not worry about anything at all. So, after he leaving for that small meeting with his colleague and his brother at the same time, his phone cannot ring since then,” he added.

A separate SSBC source told Sudans Post that Augustino is a National Security Service (NSS) officer who is attached to the state-run television station under the cover of journalist by the intelligence agency.

Augustino did not immediately reply to a text message and a call from Sudans Post at the time this report was written.

Garang John’s disappearance comes almost two weeks after the arrest, by security agencies, of six journalists over a video in which President Kiir appeared to be wetting on himself in public the previous month.

The video which has made rounds on social media sparked criticism against the president with a section of citizens calling for him to resign from the helm, against those seeing it as a defamation against a head of state.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) and the Union of Journalists of South Sudan (UJOSS) have previously expressed concerns over the journalists’ detention and called for immediate release or expedite legal processes.