The editor-in-chief of the suspended al-Watan daily Arabic newspaper is saying that he was forced to disembark from a plane at the Juba international airport on Monday.

Michael Christopher told Eye Radio he boarded an afternoon Kenya Airways flight to the Kenyan capital.

Accompanied by his wife, Christopher says he was going to participate in a workshop in Nairobi.

After taking his seat on the plane, he explains that security officers approached him and asked him to deplane – claiming that they were acting on behalf of the “highest authority”.

“When I came down, I asked them what’s happening,” Christopher narrated to Eye Radio.

“They told me that they had an order from the highest authority to confiscate my passport and prevent me from travelling.”

About three months ago, the Media Authority suspended his newspaper, al-Watan over what it called renewal of license issue.

Earlier, Christopher was forced to apologize for writing about the anti-Bashir protests in the Sudan.

According to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state and everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

The human rights declaration said that liberty of movement is an indispensable condition for the free development of a person.