A Somali reporter has been jailed since Monday following his recent online story claiming that a faction known as the Jubba Valley Alliance has been importing arms in violation of the 2004 peace agreement and a United Nations arms embargo, the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) reported.
A Somali gunman carries a Russian-made long range machinegun in the port-town of Merca, October 26, 2005, 100 km south of Mogadishu, as he guards a vessel, the MV Herol, from pirates while it offloads food aid. The US and international maritime authorities have boosted already dire piracy warnings for vessels off the coast of Somalia following a surge in attempted hijackings.(AFP/Ali Musa)The faction, which controls the southern city of Kismayo, is holding reporter Ahmed Mohammed Aden and has accused him of posting "false information" in an article on the Gedonet Online Web site, NUSOJ reported. Aden also works for private radio station Jubba FM in Kismayo and is a prominent member of NUSOJ.
Somalia has had no functioning central government since the collapse of the Siad Barre regime in 1991. A Transitional Federal Government (TFG) established under a 2004 peace accord remains divided between factions based in the town of Jowhar and the capital Mogadishu. Kismayo faction leader Barre "Hirale" Aden Shire is reconstruction minister in the TFG. Somalia ranks 149 in Paris-based RSF's (Reporters sans Frontières) Worldwide Press FreedomIndex 2005.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) attempted to contact Mohammed Abdi Hayir, information minister for the transitional government, to verify details of the NUSOJ report, but was unable to reach him. NUSOJ is considered an authoritative source on local press freedom issues.
"We call on the TFG and Kismayo authorities to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of our colleague Ahmed Mohammed Aden," said CPJ executive director Ann Cooper. "We also appeal to TFG President Abdullahi Yusuf to publicly condemn continuing attacks on the Somali press and to help bring them to an end."
Awale Jama Salad, a reporter with the private radio station STN, went into hiding in October in the autonomous Puntland region of northeast Somalia, NUSOJ reported. Police raided his home in Bossasso and the homes of four of his friends, saying they wanted to question the reporter about "false" information, NUSOJ reported. Jama has been jailed twice this year.
Authorities in the Puntland city of Bossasso arrested Awale Jama on September 26 in connection with his reporting on prison conditions. The arrest stemmed from Awale Jama's reports in July on his previous imprisonment. Those reports, broadcast on STN and picked up by some local newspapers, alleged that officials at Bossasso prison were taking bribes to free prisoners, and that conditions in the jail were so bad they were causing the spread of disease.
Awale Jama was jailed in Bossasso central prison for nearly two weeks in July, along with Sheekh Aduun, director of the local radio affiliate of the private STN network, and STN reporter Mohamed Ilke Ase. Local sources told CPJ that their imprisonment stemmed from the radio station's reporting on the mayoral campaign in Bossasso. They were later freed without charge.
In May, the Puntland government banned the weekly newspaper Shacab following a campaign of harassment. When editor Abdi Farah Nur tried to defy the ban in June, he was imprisoned for more than two weeks without charge. He fled the country in fear for his security and Shacab remains closed.
