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 Reporters Without Borders is calling for the release of Abdirahman Mohamed Hudeyfi, the manager of privately-owned Somaliweyn Radio , and Bashir Mohammed Abdulkadir, one of his journalists, who were arrested by government security forces yesterday in Mogadishu.
“The civilian government’s indifference about the safety and freedom of Somali journalists is astounding,” the press freedom organisation said. “The authorities not only refuse to protect them from targeted murders but also continue to let the security forces carry out arbitrary arrests without any explanation. The international community should ask the government to explain its abdication of responsibility in the face of repeated press freedom violations.” A unit from the transitional federal government’s National Security Agency stormed into the studios of Radio Somaliweyn yesterday and arrested Abdulkadir. After several hours went by without hearing from his employee, Hudeyfi phoned the unit’s commander. As a result, he was then summoned to NSA headquarters where he was also arrested. Their arrests bring the number of journalists currently held in Somalia to three. Mohammed Shidane Daban was arrested at Mogadishu’s Aden Adde international airport on 4 January as he was about to leave the country. Idle Moallim, a freelance reporter who often works for Somaliweyn’s website, was released on 12 January after being arrested in Bossasso, in the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland, on 5 January. No official explanation was ever given for his arrest.
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Honorable Abdullah Sheikh Hussein ?Hantiwadag? a key figure of Somaliweyn officers urged the Somali transitional government to free rapidly the director of Somaliweyn radio Mr. Abdurrahman Mohamed Hassan ?Hudeyfi? and reporter Bashir Mohamed Abdukadir ?Al- Bashir?. These two journalists are in the government custody for the past 6 days without being brought before the verdict.
In his statement Honorable Abdullahi also added that the authority of Somaliland is very repentant of the arrest of the two journalists and advocate the TFG to release Director Hudeyfi and reporter Al-Bashir.
The officer strongly insisted that there is question mark about which body is legally to account with the journalists, and said it is something of immense regretful when the ministry of information is operating the National security to arrest journalist and sometimes closedown radio stations anyhow.
?If it comes to the matter of arresting it would have been quite better for the ministry of information to write the warrant latter of arrest, but not the National Security Service having no warrant latter from the concerned ministry to come and arrest the journalists? said Abdullah Hantiwadag.
The officer Hantiwadag also said the NSS has no legal rights to arrest any citizen and the federal parliament to watch over this issue with an eagle eye, since the parliamentarians are the national legislatives.
Abdullah Sheikh Hussein also defended the departure of reporter Al-Bashir to the Eritrean capital Asmara, saying that the reporter went there on behave of the radio, but he (Al-Bashir) was no one time invited by the Asmara group or became a participant of the conference.
?Reporter Al-Bashir went to the conference hall merely to correspond and when the conference was wrapped up he instantly came back to the capital Mogadishu and that does not mean that he was one of the participants? said Hantiwadag.
Mr. Hantiwadg said that every reporter has the right to send reports from any sort of field and no one time a correspondent reporting from Afghanistan or Iraq can be called a criminal.
The officer also showed great concern of how the journalists and the radio stations in the capital are dealt with and acknowledged that the journalists are working in a hostile condition.
Abdullah Hantiwadag a veteran journalist and one time the director of radio Mogadishu and the manager of the national theater. Mr. Hantiwadg urged the TFG to release the journalists who are under the detention of the national security.
Honorable Abdullah who is among the administration personals of Somaliweyn radio advised all the directors of Mogadishu radio stations to form unique umbrella and an advocate, and jointly strike about how another radio station is dealt with.
However the signals coming to the government to free these journalists Abdurrahman Hudeyfi and Al- Basher is very high.
Somaliweyn Media Center ?SMC?