Juba University lecturers strike over detained colleagues
Article
Comments (1)
email Email
print Print
pdfSave
separation
increase
decrease
separation
separation
Juba University Entrance (Photo: Juba University Website)
January 28, 2017 (JUBA) - Academic lecturers have indefinitely
suspended lessons at the South Sudan’s main University of Juba in
protest to arbitrary detention of two academics.
Academic staff president Philip Finish Apollo and natural resources
lecture Zuher Sule were arrested on Thursday for holding a "secret
meeting" after being suspended from the university by Vice Chancellor
Prof. John Akech. The lecturers slammed the detention as illegal and
demand their immediate release.
David Evoc, the deputy president for the academic staff, said
lecturers have lived to their promise and halted lecturers. Evoc said
the arrest of Finish and Sule is an "intimidation" to the lecturers
demanding their legitimate rights of better wages and arrears as well
better management at the university.
However, University of Juba Vice Chancellor Prof. Akech said the
lecturers have acted outside the regulations and bureaucratic
management of the institutional issues. He blamed the academic for
misrepresenting "facts" to the public.
"Instead of dialoguing with (university) administration for the way
forward, they (academic staff) met on 15 December and made unfounded
allegations against the VC [Vice Chancellor] in regards to new
policies including changing a number of academic regulations," said
Akec in an email obtained by Sudan Tribune on Saturday.
He said the regulations were agreed by "appropriate bodies" governing
the university and not unilaterally declared by VC as alleged. Akech
said the academic staff abandoned university and ministry of education
as channels to address their grievances and resorted to the media.
"These allegations were first published by Juba Monitor [newspaper] on
16 December 2016 and for that reason, five academic staffs were
suspended for dissemination of false information about university
administration decision-making," he added.
He said a committee is investigating the suspended staffs. Akech said
the embattled staffs embarked on mobilising the students to trigger
chaos in the university.
"They have been polarising the university community as well as waging
media campaigns using disinformation in order to have their way," he
added.
The VC, however, did not say if he authorised the arrest of the two
lecturers. Akech did not elaborate on steps is taking to end the
strike.
A university student said lecturers did not teach on Friday.
"It is an unfortunate situation that we just found ourselves in. The
lecturers just began three weeks ago and the lecturers have been doing
great job amidst the challenges of transport and low pay," first
student identifying his first name as Sebit said on Saturday.
(ST)
--
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected]
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob
View this message at
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"South Sudan Info - The Kob" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob.
To view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oojJShZLFc2bp1ixSW7Fg7uvxhXYttC%3Drzvh8AWNUrH-g%40mail.gmail.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
