Hargeysa, Somaliland. Jan 6, 2007, (SL Times) – Forty heavily armed police and C.I.D officers stormed the offices of Haatuf Media Network (HMN) on Tuesday afternoon and arrested the chairman of HMN, Mr Yusuf Abdi Gabobe who is also the editor of Somaliland Times and the editor of the Somali language Haatuf daily newspaper, Mr Ali Abdi Dini and the chief accountant for HMN, Mr. Hussein Khalif Abdullahi who sustained minor injuries while being arrested. Mr. Hussien Khalif was released 3 hours later.

Mahad Abdi Muhammad, lawyer representing the two journalists could not gain access and see the journalists soon after their arrests on Tuesday, but managed to see them on Wednesday and Thursday morning.

Somaliland security forces entered the HMN offices without legal search or arrest warrants. For more than an hour, a mix of plain clothed C.I.D and uniformed police officers armed with AK47’s and assortments of wooden clubs, sticks harassed newsroom reporters and had confiscated a digital camera from a reporter who had taken a picture of the officers inside the newsroom.

The C.I.D officer in charge of the operation, Abdullahi Muhammad informed HMN staff that they have come to arrest Haatuf newspaper reporter Muhammad-Rashid M Farah, who was not present at the time of the raid, for insulting the President of Somaliland and his family in an article, which appeared in the Somali language ‘Haatuf’ daily paper on Monday and that they were given orders by their superiors to arrest the reporter and the editors of the paper.

The police charged HMN chairman, Yusuf A Gabobe and Ali A Dini editor of Haatuf daily newspaper on Tuesday evening for the publication of this article and were detained in C.I.D head quarters.

On Thursday at 9am both journalists were escorted under heavy security to the local District Court of Hargeysa charged with the Articles ‘451, 328 and 220’ of the Penal Code.

The State prosecutor asked the District Court judge for an extension of the two journalist’s detention for another three days in which the C.I.D will complete investigations. However, the judge allowed only two more days for the C.I.D to complete their investigations and adjourned the court for Saturday, 6 January 2007. The police returned the defendants back to their C.I.D cells.

According to a close source to the Somaliland’s police Commissioner Mohamed Dubad Sagadi said, that on Thursday in a District Court of Hargeysa the government of Somaliland had applied for a restraining order for the Haatuf daily newspaper and the closure of HMN offices for the duration of the court proceedings against the two journalists. The source added that the District court had refused to neither sanction a restraining order on the Haatuf daily newspaper nor close the offices of HMN.

Source: Somaliland Times

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