The chairperson of the teaching staff union at the University of Bahr el Ghazal said National Security Service (NSS) operatives briefly arrested him on Wednesday and later released him without being charged.
Joseph Lual Dario, who announced the strike of the teaching staff at the University of Bahr el Ghazal on Tuesday, said he first received a phone call from the NSS office in Wau asking him to report to them and while on his way there, was immediately arrested.
“What happen to me yesterday in the morning was that I came to the office of the association and I got a call from the NSS saying that they wanted me,” he narrated. “While I was going to the NSS, I was stopped by four men in a car near the blood bank and one of them was wearing the NSS uniform.”
Lual said he was handcuffed, blindfolded and driven away in the tinted vehicle.
“I did not fear, I entered a tinted car and they blindfolded me and tied my hands. They locked me inside from 9 am to 8 pm,” Dario explained. “They come to me at 8 pm and opened the door and took me back into a car and dropped me off near Wau Teaching Hospital and asked me to run away from them.”
According to Lual, the NSS operatives ordered him to call off the lecturer’s strike but he said he told them that it was not his call to make but a collective decision of all the teaching staff at the university.
“I want to say that the strike that happened yesterday is not my strike, it is a strike of the university’s teaching staff demanding their rights,” he said.
On his part, the state coordinator of the Community Empowerment for Progress (CEPO), Stephen Robo, strongly condemned the actions of the NSS.
“This is not acceptable and is an attack on human rights. It is not supposed to happen when someone is demanding his rights and people should follow the right procedures,” said Robo. “The national government has to answer to the teaching staff and pay them. The government should take responsibility for education.”
Source: Radio Tamazuj