South Sudanese government curtails security agency’s ability to arbitrarily arrest people
Human rights groups have welcomed the scrapping of South Sudan’s National Security Services’ unfettered powers to arrest people.
President Salva Kiir Mayardit and First Vice President Riek Machar last month scrapped Section 54 and 55 that allowed an arrest without a warrant and arrest with a warrant respectively under the National Security Service Act of 2014.
Many human rights organizations had called for the government to restrict the powers of the NSS, which has caused many LGBTQ and intersex people to flee to the Kakuma refugee camp in neighboring Kenya. “The SSHRDN (the South Sudan Human Rights Defenders Network) welcomes the recent proclamation by the Cabinet Affairs Minister, Dr.
Martin Elia Lumoro, on behalf of the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity declaring that the NSS no longer has the power to arrest with or without a warrant,” said the South Sudan Human Rights Defenders NetworkNational Coordinator James Bidal.
