South Sudan journalists call for forgiveness, embrace professionalism

December 20, 2015 (JUBA) – The Union of South Sudanese Journalists has called for public forgiveness and support in creating awareness on the importance of the benefits which comes with the implementation of the peace agreement signed in August between president Salva Kiir and armed opposition leader, Riek Machar.

Speaking at the getting together dinner party marking celebrations organized to give thanks and farewell talking points and notes from the experience of the year 2015, Oliver Modi Philip, head of the union said the challenge that awaited the journalists in 2016 would be to ensure that members of the media embrace professionalism and report extensively on the implementation of the peace agreement to end more than 21 months of conflict in which tens of thousands of lives have been lost and millions others uprooted from their homes.

Philip also used the occasion as the opportunity to announce to the public the closure of the offices of union for Christmas and the New Year breaks effective from 18 December 2015 until 5 January 2016.

He said he was aware of the challenges the journalists and media workers have faced during the 2015 in the course of doing their normal duties and expressed hope that 2016 would be a better year for media and the country.

“The past year has been a difficult and challenging year not only for the journalists and media workers but also for the country and the people. We hope the new year would be a year of peace, reconciliation, forgiveness, healing and commitment to implementation of the peace agreement which our president and the leader of the SPLM [Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition] have signed,” he said.

Speaking at the same occasion, Edward Ladu Terso, general-secretary of the union, said the ending year was one of the years in which members of the media and news agencies underwent difficulties that he thought it would be appropriate to apologize in case the media might have hurt others in the course of their work.

“I am saying the members of the media committed mistakes but in case some people were hurt in the course of our work. For this reason, it is appropriate to ask for forgiveness on behalf of the union of journalists,” he said.

He further added that there was need for forgiveness from all those who might have been hurt by the journalists in the country through “word of mouth or by means of our pens, recorders and cameras in areas where we have failed to abide by professional code of ethics.”

Dozens of journalists for the past four years of the country’s independence have been imprisoned at times, tortured or killed by the South Sudanese government’s security operatives who disapprove of some of their critical writings against the government.

(ST)