South Sudan claims torture not a government policy
March 9, 2016 (JUBA) – A senior cabinet minister in the government of South Sudan has denied that security services personnel have been given orders to torture or kill people with different opinions about performance of the government.
Reports say South Sudanese authorities have since tried to muzzle freedom of speech and expression as a ploy to silence critics or those with critical views about performances of the government.
But cabinet affairs minister Martin Elia Lomuro told Sudan Tribune it is not a policy of the government to torture and kill people.
“First of all I am denying that certain things occur with the knowledge of people in authority. I also would like to say clearly that torture and killing is not part of the policy of the government,’ cabinet minister Lomuro responded in an exclusive interview with Sudan Tribune on Wednesday.
“If there are people who think that what happens are government supported activities, then let them know that these are not government sanctioned activities. No government would turn against her own people, never,” he vowed.
Minister Lomuro has categorically denied that the government had sanctioned torture, intimidation, killing and all other repressive forms against people with critical views and opinions.
“I would like to make it clear once again that the government has never issued any orders nor instructions regarding this and I am sure security services have never received such orders. So anybody accused of such charges is doing it out of parameters of laws and the constitution,” he said.
The senior government official was reacting to a question asking whether it was now the policy of the government to kidnap, torture, and dump and even kill people with views and opinions critical about the poor performance of the government, given that journalists and activists have always fallen victims of such heinous acts without interventions from the government.
His comments also followed the incident in which journalist, Joseph Afendi, went missing on 4 March after being abducted by men driving a white vehicle without number plates. Afendi was later found dumped near a grave yard and badly beaten. His legs, according to the photo image shared widely on social media, were marked with what appeared to be deliberate burns from plastic substance.
Some of his relatives and colleagues told Sudan Tribune on Monday and Tuesday that they found him burned with fire on the thighs. He was burned with fire and one of his arms is broken as a result of beating.
Afendi has now been flown out of the country for medical attention. Many relatives expressed fear the brutal way he was handled by those who abducted him may have a severe effect on his reproductive system.
The motives of the government operatives targeting the journalist remain largely unclear as this was the second attempt on his life.
In December 2015, however, security services personnel arrested and held him without charge for almost two months. Afendi was the editor of El Tabeer Arabic newspaper which the government operatives shut down after harassing its management.
Observers attributed the cause to an article which Afendi himself had written in his column and was critical of the performance of the entire leadership of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) under the overall leadership of President Salva Kiir.
South Sudan’s human rights record has repeatedly come under sustained internal and global scrutiny before and after gaining independence from neighbouring Sudan in July 2011.
(ST)