Somalia, it’s time for action
On the morning of Tuesday, October 22, 2013, Somali television journalist Mohamed Mohamud, nicknamed “Tima’ade,” was seriously wounded when unknown armed men attacked him on his way home from work. He was shot more than five times. Colleagues and local residents in Wadajir district, where the attack took place, immediately rushed him to Madina Hospital in…
Somali gunmen attempt to kill a Universal TV journalist
Nairobi, October 22, 2013–Somali authorities must work quickly to identify the motive in today’s murder attempt on a broadcast reporter and bring the perpetrators to justice, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. The journalist, Mohamed Mohamud, has been hospitalized with serious injuries.
Duping pirates and endangering journalists
It could have been the script for a John Le Carré intrigue. On Saturday October 12, Belgian security agents arrested Mohamed Abdi Hassan, a kingpin of Somali piracy known as “Afweyne” (Big Mouth), and his associate Mohammed M. Aden, nicknamed Tiiceey, a former governor of Himan and Heeb province.
Assailants throw grenades at radio station in Puntland
Nairobi, October 16, 2013–Unidentified assailants threw two grenades at the Galkayo offices of Radio Daljir in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland on Tuesday night, according to news reports and local journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the attack on Radio Daljir, which has been targeted in the past, and calls on authorities to identify…
Q&A: Hubaal’s editor talks about press in Somaliland
Hubaal, Somaliland’s critical and much-beleaguered daily newspaper, is back on newsstands after a presidential pardon last week. The paper was shuttered on orders of the attorney general in June without explanation. In April, two gunmen, subsequently identified by authorities as police officers, raided the office of Hubaal and attacked its staff after a series of…
Two Somali journalists shot in Kismayo
Nairobi, July 18, 2013–Two Somali journalists were wounded, one critically, when they came under fire on Wednesday while covering the aftermath of a landmine explosion in the southern port city of Kismayo, according to news reports and local journalists. The Committee to Protect Journalists calls for an immediate and thorough investigation.
A bid to rid Africa of criminal defamation, sedition laws
The African Union’s special rapporteur on freedom of expression and access to information, Commissioner Pansy Tlakula, has launched an auspicious initiative in East Africa to counter criminal defamation and sedition laws. Since independence, authorities and business interests in the East and Horn region have used criminal laws on sedition, libel, and insult–often relics of former,…
In Somaliland, Hubaal journalists sentenced to jail
Nairobi, July 3, 2013–A court in the capital of the semi-autonomous republic of Somaliland today convicted the manager and editor of the independent daily Hubaal of defamation and sentenced them to prison. Hubaal’s editor, Hussein Hassan Abdullahi, received two years, while the paper’s manager, Mohamed Ahmed Jama, was sentenced to one year in jail on…