October 19, 2005 (noticias.info) – Reporters Without Borders and its partner organization, the National ‎Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), today accused the police in the autonomous northeastern region of ‎Puntland of “outrageous behavior and ferocity” towards the independent news media.‎

The two organizations said they were particularly appalled by prison conditions in Bossasso, where a ‎journalist with a privately-owned radio station, the Somalia TV Network (STN), was detained for a second ‎time and subjected to severe physical mistreatment at the end of September after he criticized conditions in ‎the jail.‎

‎“Despite our repeated appeals, the current president of Somalia’s transitional federal government, Abdillahi ‎Yusuf Ahmed, has failed to establish the rule of law in Puntland although he has a great deal of influence in ‎the region,” the organizations said. ‎‎“Nonetheless, urgent action is needed as the two main cities, Garowe and Bossasso, have become high-risk ‎areas for journalists and the authorities have no qualms about gagging news media they dislike,” Reporters ‎Without Borders and NUSOJ said. “If President Ahmed’s promises of democracy are not to lose all credibility ‎in the eyes of the international community, he must stop ignoring the accelerating loss of press freedom in ‎his own fiefdom.”‎

STN editor in chief Awale Jama Salad was arrested in Bossasso, mistreated and detained in degrading ‎conditions for the second time this year in September. His arrest, on 26 September, came after he gave an ‎account on the air of his earlier detention in June and July. He was repeatedly punched by policemen ‎following his arrest. When STN manager Abdisarak Shek Adun tried to visit Salad at the police station, he ‎was turned away and told he would be arrested if he came back. Salad was transferred on 27 September to ‎the headquarters of the Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS).‎

Both Salad and Adun had been arrested on 30 June and detained for nearly two weeks as a result of an ‎interview STN broadcast with a candidate for the post of Bossasso mayor. At the same time, several ‎municipal council members were reportedly arrested after having releases broadcast on STN. The two ‎journalists were finally freed on 12 July following a presidential pardon.‎

When transferred to intelligence headquarters on 27 September, Salad was put in a small, poorly-ventilated ‎room with open toilets along with some 70 other ordinary detainees, including suspected murderers, thieves ‎and drug traffickers. The quantity of food they were given was not enough for all the detainees, with the ‎result there were fights over the food. The only source of water was the toilet plumbing. Salad was finally ‎released on 28 September following pressure from national and international organizations.‎

NUSOJ secretary-general Omar Faruk Osman said: “The illegal detention and mistreatment of Salad were ‎unspeakable abuses designed to send journalists a clear message that they should tone down their criticism ‎of the government, police and civil service. Journalists are being given the choice of singing the praises of ‎the authorities or resigning themselves to the stench of prison.”‎

Before beginning to target STN, the authorities reduced the opposition weekly Shacab (The Voice of the ‎People) to silence. Shacab editor Abdi Farah Nur and one of his journalists, Abdirashid Qoransey, were ‎arrested by the Puntland police on 20 April, imprisoned and were tried a few days later on charges of ‎‎“inciting violence and insulting the president” in two articles. They were both acquitted.‎

Information ministry representatives and other officials began visiting the newspaper on 28 April about ‎licence permits and taxes that Shacab has allegedly not paid, threatening during these visits to close the ‎newspaper. This was finally done on 5 May in a decree by Puntland Vice-President Hassan Dahir Afqurac, ‎which claimed that “articles recently published in Shacab were the cause of a crisis that could have led to ‎violence. Fearing imprisonment, Nur fled the country.‎

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