The National Security officials have returned the press cards confiscated from two Juba based journalists.
The valid Media Authority accreditation press cards were taken from the Union of Journalists of South Sudan (UJOSS) president, Patrick Oyet Charles and his cameraman Samuel Abud on Monday evening. The duo work for China Global Television Network (CGTN)- Africa.
The officers from National Security Political Affairs Office in Juba, confiscated Oyet and Abud’s press cards on Monday, 15th, 2024, while filming a piece to camera (PTC), a routine practice done by professional television journalists around the world.
In an interview with Radio Tamazuj on Tuesday, Oyet confirmed receipt of the press cards, but said the security operatives regretted their actions and requested for a mutual partnership with the media.
“Today of course, we went and followed up on our cards, we were received well, we even found some of them at the reception, they welcomed us and took us to the office,” he narrated.
Adding, “The only thing that happened is that they really regretted that what they did was not correct, and they said they will not do it again. The only thing is so long as you have a valid document they don’t have a problem. Of course the military installations or security protected areas are the only ones they said they don’t want people to film without permission, but anywhere else doing news is free, they regretted and they returned our IDs in which of course we accepted their apology and they asked us to work together,” Oyet said.
Oyet said he was doing a story about South Sudan’s government plea for 1.8 million dollars to support refugees and returnees fleeing war from Sudan.
“We were filming a piece to camera, because we were a doing a story about South Sudan’s government asking for 1.8 million dollars to be able to support refugees, returnees and host communities, then we were approached by some security officials, who said they wanted to know who we work for. We introduced ourselves, and then they asked for letters, we told them we don’t use letters in the profession, but we use media accreditation cards from the South Sudan Media Authority,” he said.
Oyet added that it is at that point that the officers confiscated their cards asking them to report to their office the next day.
Majak Daniel, UJOSS Secretary General shared on UJOSS platform, “We have retrieved the two accreditations of our president of the Union of Journalists of South Sudan, including Abud, who is Oyet’s CGTN cameraman.”
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