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Alert

President urged to order "Shacab" editor's release and lifting of weekly's suspension

(RSF/IFEX) - RSF has expressed disbelief at the obstinacy of the authorities in Somalia's autonomous region of Puntland after the arrest of the editor of a privately-owned weekly. The organisation urged President Abdullalhi Yusuf Ahmed to quickly order the release of "Shacab" editor Abdi Farah Nur, arrested by police on the evening of 19 June and imprisoned in Garowe.

On the morning of the same day, local sources in Galkayo, western Somalia, said Farah had been threatened several times at a ceremony opening the 14th session of Parliament. Finance Minister Mohamed Ali Yusuf had stopped the editor to tell him that "Shacab"'s printer was to be nationalised and that he would be jailed for five years.

Shortly afterwards, as Farah was taking photos of the ceremony, police escorted him to the police station. Once there, officers told him that they had information suggesting that "Shacab", temporarily banned under a 5 May presidential decree, was going to reappear. They asked him to sign a statement undertaking not to reopen the newspaper, which he refused to do. Finally released, Farah returned to his offices and published his paper.

Late in the evening, two officers sent by Garowe Police Chief Colonel Abdi Gaani turned up at "Shacab"'s offices, occupied the premises and took the editor to the Garowe police station. Two employees of a printing house owned by the same company as "Shacab" were also arrested on 19 June and released overnight.

"When 'Shacab' was temporarily suspended we appealed to the Somali president and former president of the autonomous Puntland region, Abdullalhi Yusuf Ahmed," noted RSF. "To our great regret, our appeal was not listened to and the harassment of the newspaper has continued. If he wants to prove that Somalia is a country in which press freedom is respected, President Yusuf should very quickly order the release of the editor of 'Shacab' and lift the ban on the weekly. If the region he presided over were to become a legal no-go area for journalists, the credibility of the transitional institutions would be seriously damaged."