Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
3 November 2009
Baidoa — The National Union of Somali Journalists has strongly condemned a wave of arrests of journalists and media house raids across Southern Somali regions last week.
According to Eastern Africa Journalists Agency (EAJA) press statement, A group of armed men loyal to the Al-Shabaab administration in Baidoa town, the regional headquarters of Bay region stormed Warsan Radio compound late Saturday October 31, and detained one of the reporters.
Warsan Radio was ordered closed on October 21, indefinitely by the Al Shabaab administration.
Journalist Muhyadin Husni, a reporter with Warsan Radio who is also the regional correspondent for Shabelle Media Network is still in custody and the Al-Shabaab administration is yet to comment on the reason of his arrest.
"A group of masked armed men came to the radio station on Saturday afternoon and arrested our reporter Muhyadin Husni," said Hilal Sheik Shuayb, the Director of Warsan Radio in Baidoa.
"The armed men are still within the radio compound and they have taken the keys to the radio station from the guards," Hilal said.
In the capital Mogadishu, a Somali war photographer and Award winning journalist, Mohamed Dahir, an AFP photo reporter, and Mohamoud Muktar Koofi, a Universal TV cameraman, were kept for 48 hours in a detention centre at Villa Somalia by the government soldiers.
The journalists were said to have allegedly been taking photographs of African Union tankers firing Bakara market, after insurgents attacked the bases of the government forces and that of the African Union (AU) peacekeepers along Maka Al-Mukarama road on Wednesday morning.
Before they were detained, the police were ordered to erase the films and photographs, according to the journalists.
"They did not torture us, but they interrogated us on Wednesday night around 2:00 am, alleging we were Al-Shabaab spies. That was the most difficult case we faced during our detention." Dahir said.
The journalists were later released upon the intervention of Yusuf Mire Seeraar, a Somali MP who heard of the arrest on Thursday.
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