Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has expressed outrage at the arrest of two journalists and the closure of a TV station in the northwestern breakaway territory of Somaliland and the beatings which several journalists received from police in the northeastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
“While the international community’s attention is focused on the abduction of two French government advisers who were posing a journalists in Mogadishu, the real journalists continue to be arrested and attacked with complete impunity,” Reporters Without Borders said. “The international community should help Somali journalists, who are exposed to enormous risks.”
Ahmed Saleban Dhuhul and Sayid Osman Mire, both members of the Somaliland Journalists Associations (SOLJA), were arrested without a warrant on July 13 when the police raided Horyaal Radio, a privately-owned station based in the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa.
Accused by Somaliland President Dahir Riyate of stirring up a tribal dispute that led to the death of four people, they are still being held at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigation Department in Hargeisa. A local television station, Horn Cable TV (HCTV), has been closed on the orders of the Somaliland attorney general for broadcasting a report about the same dispute.
In Puntland, several journalists, including Aweys Sheikh Nur of Horseed Media Radio, were attacked and beaten by police while attending the trial of a number of Somali pirates in the port city of Bosaso.
The journalists were attacked after some of them took photos of the prosecutor although they complied with a request to delete the photos. The judge and other court officials did not intervene while the police beat them. When the journalists complained, one police officer said: “We do not like what you report; you journalists are against the government.”
Africa’s deadliest country for the news media, Somalia was ranked 153rd out of 173 countries in the 2008 RSF press freedom index. Abductions of journalists and humanitarian aid workers are now common in Somalia and six journalists have been killed since the start of the year.
