Media Helping Media

Troops force Somali broadcaster off air

Published on Monday, 17 September 2007

Written by MHM Admin

  

Reports from [[Mogadishu]] say the independent media organisation, Global Broadcasting Corporation (GBC), is off air after [[Somalia]]'s transitional government deployed troops at the main gate. Dalmar Yusuf Mohamed in Mogadishu emailed this site to report that, because of the action, journalists have been unable to get past the soldiers in order to do their jobs.

It's the second attack on the broadcaster in five months.

Five months ago, four shells hit the GBC television studio forcing the broadcaster off the air --- nobody was wounded.

At the time, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) expressed their outrage at the attack on journalists and the news media saying "the media can never be counted as a legitimate targets."

Earlier this week, RSF issued a statement accusing the federal transitional government of failing to take serious steps to ensure the safety of journalists in Mogadishu.

The statement came as RSF called on the authorities to release Mohamed Hussein Jimaale, correspondent in Mogadishu for the news website Puntlandpost, who was arrested on 12 September.

Two days ago, on September 15, NUSOJ reported that 14 journalists and five staff on the privately-owned Radio Shabelle were seized and held for more than two hours "in atrocious conditions", after police raided their studios.

"Maintaining order in a crisis situation does not justify this reign of unfairness and brutality, particularly when the declared political goal is to restore democracy," NUSOJ said in a statement.

  

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