Sossion denies defaming international school

What you need to know:

  • Mr Sossion has been sued by the school for defaming the institution through an alleged malicious post about the institution in a March 15 post on his official Twitter page.
  • In his case documents filed on June 12, he denies defaming the school and insists that it has not set the necessary criteria as per the required standards to be in operation.

Kenya National Union of Teachers (Knut) Secretary General Wilson Sossion has defended his utterances against a low cost international school as “just a fair comment.”

While responding to a case in which Bridge International Academies Limited had protested against remarks made by Mr Sossion regarding the closure of institution’s schools via a post on social media, he insists that he only gave his opinion on a matter of great public interest.

Mr Sossion has been sued by the school for defaming the institution through an alleged malicious post about the institution in a March 15 post on his official Twitter page.

In the post, he is alleged to have accused the institution of getting ‘the richest of the poor at great cost of those families’ because it is founded on a ‘massive marketing opportunity’.

THE TRUTH

“I reiterate that the statement made concerning the school were justified comments out of public reports and court decisions made fairly, it was not to disparage it at all since it just amounts to the truth,” said Mr Sossion.

In his case documents filed on June 12, he denies defaming the school and insists that it has not set the necessary criteria as per the required standards to be in operation.

Bridge is a renowned low-cost private international academy with schools in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, India and Liberia. It has 405 schools in the country.

With the dispute arising from a social media post, the school dragged him to court together with the teachers Union over defamation and successfully managed to obtain an order gagging Mr Sossion from making any defamatory statement about it.

The institution had requested him to withdraw his statements over the post but he declined to do so.

In their suit documents, they had further accused him of going ahead to call for demonstrations against the institution to call for the closure of their schools.