The editor-in-chief of the Juba Monitor has been arrested. Allegedly defying a court order to stop publication. Anna Namiriano was arrested Tuesday afternoon. Lazarus Yuggu, attorney representing Namiriano, called his client’s arrest illegal.
VOA News: The editor-in-chief of South Sudan’s oldest English-language newspaper, the Juba Monitor, has been arrested for allegedly defying a court order to stop publication over alleged malpractice.
Anna Namiriano was arrested Tuesday afternoon after not acting on an order issued last week by Juba’s Kator High Court to shut down the paper. She reportedly was being held at Juba’s central prison.
The case involves a dispute between the newspaper’s management and the family of its late founder, veteran journalist Alfred Taban, who died in April 2019. Taban’s family had filed a lawsuit in 2020 against the independent newspaper’s managers and its publisher, Grand Media Africa, accusing them of mismanaging the paper’s ownership and resources.
Last week, the Kator High Court suspended the Juba Monitor’s activities, said Becu Pitia Lagu, an attorney representing the Taban family.
“Anna deliberately refused to implement the court ruling which was passed on the date 13th of this month asking her to close down the newspapers, cease the activities of the company,” Pitia told.
Lazarus Yuggu, an attorney representing Namiriano, said the court never informed his client or the publisher of the shutdown order. He called his client’s arrest illegal.
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Image: Isaac Billy
