Posts Tagged ‘Al Shabaab’
June 24th, 2011
Members of the Sufi group,
Ahlu Sunna Waljama (ASWJ), shut down Radio Dhusamareb of central
Somalia on Wednesday evening. Seven masked intruders forced staff to evacuate the building and the station’s editor was arrested and taken into custody. He has now been released without charge. Less than
24 hours before the attack,
Al Shabaab militants silenced the Voice of Hiran radio station in the town of Beletweyne.
May 7th, 2010
Veteran broadcast journalist
Sheik Nur Mohamed Abkey was shot dead by Islamic insurgents on Tuesday. Abkey, in his early 60s, was returning from work at the state-run Radio Mogadishu when three gunmen abducted him.
Al-Shabaab insurgents called Radio Mogadishu to claim the murder. Abkey started out as a reporter in 1988, colleagues claim refused to bow to intimidation from Mogadishu’s warring factions. Although he was encouraged to live at the station for security reason,
he continued to live in an area controlled by insurgents.
April 14th, 2010
Islamist insurgents have
banned music from radio broadcasts claiming its un-Islamic. Stations have already complied with the order, issued at the beginning of April, as workers feared for their safety. The
BBC report that all but two of the Mogadishu’s 15 radio stations used to broadcast music.
Last week, the armed Islamic group al-Shabaab banned the re-broadcast of BBC productions in Somalia, claiming they were against Muslisms and Islam.
March 19th, 2010
Two journalists have been
detained in southern Somalia by the Islamist group
al-Shabaab. Mohammed Salad Abdulle of the Somali Broadcasting Corporation was arrested in Kismayo, while Mohamed Abdikarim was imprisoned in Baladhawo on 16 March. Al-Shabaab claims to control most of southern and central Somalia and has a history of abducting or killing reporters. Most recently
the group arrested Ali Yusuf Adan, a correspondent for Radio Somaliweyn, in the lower Shabelle region.
August 25th, 2009
The National Union of Somali Journalists has expressed its outrage at the continued suppression of media rights in the Gedo region by the Islamist group Al-Shabaab. The NUSJ report detailed how Radio Markabley was ordered to fire two of its journalists for writing “biased reports” and was issued with a seven-point decree by the group. The decree accuses the station of being “too neutral regarding holy war” and instructs them to stop broadcasting any secular songs or use any musical programs, interviews, advertisements or news content. Read more here
