2009 disastrous year for Somali journalists

As the country is nearing to its  third decade without any effective central government, this year it witnessed the worst and the deadliest incidents relating to the media persons in its nearly forty years history. Nine local journalists were gunned down in the line of duty, the highest yearly tally ever documented.

Recent slaughters are highly regrettable and heartbreaking, aimed at derailing the country’s booming media industry. In fact, reporting is about pursuing the truth and no one likes the truth to be revealed. Surely this could have been the cause of these killings.

Latest figures show that Somalia had the second highest death toll in 2009, after Philippines. Needless to blame any individuals or groups for these killings, we have to acknowledge that whosoever was behind these attacks was enemy of all who loves peace, prosperity, and freedom of expression.

Violent attacks on reporters are happening on a daily basis in the anarchy-infested capital. Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and rebel groups (Hisb-ul-Islam and al-Shabab) accuse each other of orchestrating brutal actions against our media which pay a heavy price to ensure free flow of information. Nevertheless, both sides rejected those allegations. 

Despite the death threat, harassment, arrests, oppression, torture and regular killings, our young journalists are working round the clock to sacrifice their lives while sticking to Mogadishu in order to inform, entertain and educate the Somali people at large. They are working very horrible conditions, worse than what Iraqi and Afghan journalists faced this year.

Among those killed was Said Tahlil Ahmed, Director of Hornafrik. He was murdered by unidentified masked gunmen in Bakara Market as he was going to take part in a press conference. Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe was another victim of these extra-judicial killings that have been taking place in the capital after the Ethiopian invasion. The killings of Abdinasir Nur Gedi, Mohamed Amin, Nuur Muse Hussein, Yaasir Mario, and Hassan Zubeyr are worrisome, condemnable and pathetic. 

It is an indisputable fact that our journalists are not well equipped with the required knowledge of their profession. Most of them are lacking proper knowledge, training, and the capacity required to have a journalist and certainly these can pose multiple challenges to the reporters, which sometimes cost their lives.

Working under dire circumstances, our reporters are routinely facing all kinds of intimidation. For that reason we have to put pressure on those involved in these heinous, unjustifiable crimes against the innocent media persons. We have to stand side by side with our journalists and defend their rights because they dare to risk their lives to cover the news of this perilous part of the world while majority of their colleagues have left the capital for the neighboring countries.

Finally, let me extend my wholehearted condolences to the bereaved families of all journalists who lost their lives for the sake of their country and their journalistic profession. Indeed, it is a nightmarish experience for me to hear latest slaughters of our journalists by barbaric, malicious and thoughtless.

Let’s hope that one day they will be taken to any accountability for proper punishment to meet the ends of justice.

Abdinur Mohamed Ahmed

Islamabad/Pakistan

nobleman254@hotmail.com