Somali Journalists Targeted
Posted on 13. Jul, 2009 by Lonnie Isabel in Podcast
Omar Faruk Osman (left) and Mohamed Amiin Adow speak on a panel at the Global Media Forum in Bonn. Photo by Deutsche Welle.
Three days after I interviewed three remarkable young Somali journalists in Bonn, Germany, an all too common outrage occurred in a crowded market in Mogadishu. Gunmen killed Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe, the director of Shabelle Media Network. This radio outlet is a key source of news in a country that has careened out of control since 1991. Hirabe was the fifth journalist killed this year and the 15th in the past two years. As in much of Africa, radio is the most important medium for news. Shabelle, which operates out of the capital, Mogadishu, has been particularly hard hit with kidnappings and assassinations.
Somalia now has the distinction of being the most dangerous place in the world to practice the craft of journalism. After Hirabe’s death, more journalists fled the country as dozens have in the years of warfare among a weakened government, scores of warlords and Islamic extremists.
One of the journalists I interviewed in Bonn, Mohamed Amiin Adow, was a close friend of Hirabe. In this interview, we are also joined by Omar Faruk Osman, secretary general of the National Union of Somali Journalists and one of the leading advocates for press freedom in Africa, and Abbas Gassem, a media-savvy Somali who has created a news website from Europe.
Osman sees the situation as a “war against the media.” Adow says journalists risk their lives each day in Somalia and that no assignment is routine. Everyday, they must alter their routes to and from work and assignments. Reporters have been beaten at press conferences, abducted, threatened and killed in their homes. The violence can come from any of the warring sides. Gassem says the international community must act now to help protect journalists inside the country.
Western journalists have not been able to work safely in Somalia for several years. Reporting on the country’s ongoing problems–from a burgeoning refugee crisis to the increasing presence of Al Qaeda-connected foreign militants–is left primarily to Somali journalists. “Americans and Europeans are talking only about pirates,” Osman told me here. “Everything is about Western interests but the future of Somalia is in the world’s interest. No country can be without law for 20 years and not affect the rest of the world.”
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