Six journalists have been detained in South Sudan for the leak of a video showing the president of the country, Save Kiirurinating during an official event that took place last December, as denounced by the national union of journalists.
The images in question show the 71-year-old president in a solemn moment at a road inauguration ceremony. As the national anthem plays and everyone looks ahead, a dark stain begins to appear on Salva Kiir’s pants, and when she is aware of what is happening, she looks down. At that precise moment, the camera changes focus and points in another direction.
The video was never broadcast on television, but it began to spread on social networks, as reported by the Reuters agency. It was this Saturday when Patrick Oyetpresident of the South Sudan Journalists Union, has warned of the arrests of his colleagues, which occurred during the days of Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
They “are suspected of having knowledge of how the video of the president urinating on himself came to light,” he told Reuters.
The affected informants are workers of the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation, the public entity of the country. According to Oyet, they are camera operators Joseph Oliver and Mustafa Osman, video editor Victor Lado, assistant Jacob Benjamin, as well as Cherbek Ruben and Joval Toombe, both members of the organization’s television control room.
