South Sudan Scraps Power To Arrest Without A Warrant

February 22, 2023 Leave a comment

South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar have agreed to scrap a controversial law that allows the National Security Services (NSS) to arrest people without an arrest warrant.

This is a significant part of reforms agreed in a peace agreement to end a brutal six-year civil war.

Rights groups have described the NSS as a feared agency used to silence dissent and which has been accused of widespread human rights abuses.

The peace deal was signed by Mr Kiir and Mr Machar in September 2018, but it took another 17 months for the two to agree to form a unity government.

Now the pair say a three-year transitional period has been completed and they are moving into a new phase that will see elections in December next year and a formal transition of power by February 2025.

More than 400,000 people are thought to have died as a result of the conflict and violence continues in parts of the country.

By: BBC