Kaamil Ahmed
Wednesday July 31, 2024
Detention of reporters for covering sensitive news is having a ‘chilling’ effect on free media in Somalia, say rights groups.
AliNur Salaad was detained last week and accused of ‘immorality, false reporting and insulting the armed forces’ for reporting on use of the drug khat in the army. Photograph: @alinurSalaad
The arrest of a journalist for reporting on drug use in the Somali military is the latest incident in an apparent clampdown on critical reporting in the country, which is having a “chilling” effect on Somalia’s media, rights campaigners said.
AliNur Salaad was detained last week and accused of “immorality, false reporting and insulting the armed forces”, after publishing a now-deleted video suggesting that soldiers were vulnerable to attacks by al-Shabaab militants because of widespread use of the traditional narcotic khat.
Angela Quintal, head of the African programme at the Committee to Protect Journalists, called on Somali authorities to drop the case “and allow journalists to report and comment freely on public affairs”
“Somalia must end its practice of harassing and arbitrarily detaining journalists,” she said.
In the past month, the Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS), a trade union and press freedom group, has criticised the threats and charges levelled against another journalist, Mohamed Salah, for “false and misleading information” in reporting on the suspension of licences for aid organisations by the Somali state of Puntland.
Said Abdullahi Kulmiye was also arrested in July for reporting on incidents of police and armed men demanding bribes at checkpoints. Abdulkadir Isse, a state media employee, was blocked from reporting after publishing an article exploring corruption and abuse of power involving a government minister.
In May, the journalists Sharma’arke Abdi Mahdi and Abdinur Hayi Hashi said they were shot at by four police officers in the town of Dhobley, where they had reported on the local administration’s lack of support for internally displaced people.
Salaad was given bail on Saturday after five days in detention. The SJS secretary general, Abdalle Ahmed Mumin, said no date had yet been set for his hearing.
Mumin – who himself was imprisoned for two months in 2023 over the SJS’s opposition to legislation it believed would restrict free speech – said detention and drawn-out proceedings inhibited all journalists.
“When you are detained, you end up in endless fear. You are not able to continue what you were doing in the past. Critical reporting, independent reporting – that no longer exists,” he said.
“It seems to send a clear message, a chilling message, to other journalists, so the wider community of journalists are in fear and everybody says, ‘What about me? What if I end up in there? What will happen to me?’”
In April SJS’s bank accounts were frozen at the request of Somalia’s attorney general, after the organisation was accused of defamation and registering with false documentation – though it did not specify who had been defamed.
Mumin said: “That was the attempt by the ministry of information and the Somali government in Mogadishu to threaten us, to send us a message to say: ‘if you report on press freedoms, we will come [for] your funding.’”
Laetitia Bader, of Human Rights Watch, said there was a pattern of using criminal law to intimidate journalists during President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s first term in power, between 2012 and 2017, that should not be repeated in his current tenure.
“We have repeatedly raised concerns about the ongoing criminalisation and prosecutions of journalists in Somalia, including around issues of tarnishing of state institutions,” said Bader.
“The tendency to prevent reporting on issues which could be perceived as being controversial or sensitive has made it very difficult for journalists to report on issues which could be of important public interest,” she said.
The Somali government has not responded to a Guardian request for comment.