Somali sports journalists jailed and threatened with death
25.04.2008
By Michael HerbornThe two were detained with four other journalists: Ibrahim Abdi Hassan, Abdi Kamil Yusuf, Mohamed Abdullahi and Mohamed Kafi Ali. All six were taken away by heavily armed men on Thursday 17 April at noon and released at 9 pm that evening. They were held at the criminal investigation department in Mogadishu.
The journalists were arrested after the radio station they work for, Radio Voice of Peace, reportedly broadcast live coverage of fighting between militants and government forces the day beforehand.
“At about 12 pm on Thursday heavily armed police broke into the radio station, they ordered the radio to be off air and all 6 journalists including me and my vice president Shafici Mohyaddin to get on a minibus as they drove us toward the criminal investigation department (CID),” SSPA president Mohamed Osman told a press conference on Friday after the six were released.
When detained, Mohammed Osman reports that the police officer who arrested them said that “our job is to kill journalists, I am sorry that you are still alive, you were better to be killed instead of being arrested.”
Mohyaddin told journalists at the press conferences that all six feared for their lives when they while they were forced to stay in hot, dusty cells, lacking toilets and with the noise of anti-aircraft gunfire throughout.
“I and my president Muse told the police officers that we are sports people, we showed them our AIPS Identification cards and they said to us if a journalist writes sports or broadcasts other news stories it is same to us,” Moyhaddin added.
Dangerous occupation
Journalism is a dangerous occupation for Somalis. The SSPA reports that at least eight journalists killed and more than 50 fled from Somali capital Mogadishu in 2007 alone.
In response to a recent spate of attacks on journalists, the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called upon the Somali government to improve the conditions for journalists, as well as ending an ongoing government crackdown on the media.
“We are concerned about this new wave of attacks against the media after a short period of calm,” said Gabriel Baglo, Director of IFJ Africa office. “Prime Minister [Nur Haddan] Hussein promised to protect press freedom during his first weeks in office and we are calling on him to make sure our colleague is released and that government forces stop arresting journalists and raiding media organisations.”
Baglo’s call were echoed by Osmar Faruk Osman, secretary general of the National Union of Somali Journalists: “Police brutalities against media are intolerable and the Transitional Government must stop violence against journalists and media houses by its soldiers.”
Muse Mohamed Osman and Shafici Mohyaddin Abokar have now returned to work at the Voice of Peace radio station, which took to the airwaves again on the Friday morning following the release of the six journalists.
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