Court sentences man in murders of five Somali journalists
New York, March 4, 2016 — A military court in Mogadishu on Thursday found Hassan Hanafi, a former journalist, guilty of direct or indirect involvement in the killing five journalists on behalf of the armed militant group Al-Shabaab, according to news reports. The court sentenced him to death by execution, which in Somalia is usually…
‘A Somali journalist’s life is short anyways’
In August, Shabelle Media Network, one of Somalia’s leading independent broadcasters, did something incredibly brave–they rebroadcast news and music that the BBC’s Somali-language service beams to the war-torn Horn of African nation in defiance of a ban imposed by hard-line militant Islamist rebel groups Al-Shabaab and Hizbul Islam. For Somali journalists, who risk death by crossfire and assassination, and censorship from both…