SOMALIA: Government silences media groups

NAIROBI, 15 January 2007 (IRIN) - The Transitional Federal Government (TFG) of Somalia has shut down HornAfrik radio and television, Shabelle Media Network, Radio Voice of Holy Koran and the offices of Al Jazeera Television, media officials told IRIN on Monday.

"At around 1:30 pm local time today [Monday], a government official accompanied by armed men presented a letter, signed by a Col. Ahmed Hassan Ali [new head of the National Security Agency for Mogadishu] ordering us to shut down and cease our operations," HornAfrik managing partner, Ali Iman Sharmarke, said.

"We have been off the air ever since," he said.

Muhammad Amin Sheikh Adow, the deputy chairman of the Shabelle Media Network, told IRIN he received a similar letter "at the same time. I think they wanted us off air at the same time."

The two media houses are the biggest in the city, with the largest audience, according to a local journalist.

According to Sharmarke, the media groups were not given any explanation as to why they were shut down. "There was no explanation telling us what law we broke nor any time limit to the shut-down."

Abdirahman Dinari, the TFG spokesman, confirmed the closures and accused the media groups of "carrying programmes likely to cause unrest and propaganda against martial law".

On Saturday, the interim parliament passed a law allowing the government to declare martial law for up three months.  

The radio stations had been carrying programmes debating the martial law and its effects, sources said.

The TFG, backed by Ethiopian forces, took Mogadishu on 28 December without force after the Union of Islamic Courts abandoned the city a day earlier.

"We have operated under the chaos of the warlords and under the Islamic courts but this is the first time we have been shut down. It is very unfortunate that this comes under the government," said Sharmarke.

The action was also denounced by journalists and civil society in Mogadishu. "We robustly denounce this action against freedom of the press. It is a clear indication of silencing the free voice of journalism in Mogadishu," said Omar Faruk Osman, the secretary-general of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ). "These acts are absolutely unjustifiable, and we ask the transitional government to withdraw this oppressive and unconstitutional decree immediately and unconditionally.

"The state of emergency must not be an excuse to suppress the freedom of the media and if this is what is meant by a state of emergency, then it completely undermines the democratic values that the TFG has been proclaiming," said Osman.

A spokesman for the Civil Society in Action told IRIN: "We are extremely disturbed by this action and we condemn it in the strongest terms possible."

He said the action was not only a violation of media freedom but violated the interim charter [constitution].

The spokesman said that "the country had many more pressing problems and the government, instead of addressing issues such as security, displaced and flood victims, seems more interested in silencing the media".

Sheikh Adow of Shabelle radio said the management had been told to present themselves in the National Security Agency office on Tuesday.

Ah/mw