January 13, 2016 | Daily Monitoring Report
Somalia’s New Controversial Media Law Takes Effect
13 January – Source: Hiiraan Online – 236 Words
A new wave of concern for media freedom in Somalia has risen among Somali journalists as the controversial media law took effect on Tuesday, three days after President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud signed it into law, The 42-article med law, initially endorsed by the Cabinet and Parliament, is viewed as ‘restrictive’ as it gives authorities wide-range of options to prosecute and arrest journalists for disseminating ‘false’ news.
The new legislation also slaps heavy fines on journalists and media houses that infringe the law: “The media law has taken effect today and it’s implications will be broadcast on the state media,” Somalia’s Information Minister Mohamed Abdi Hayir told reporters. Despite an outrage by journalists, the minister insisted that the law protects journalists’ rights.
Somali journalists expressed concern about contents of the law, particularly the article which creates a watchdog that will regulate the media operating in the country. This scenario, say the journalists, is aimed at censoring critical voices as well as issuing gagging orders on sensitive topics: “The government is sadly flexing its muscles towards rather than dealing with other important things including the fragile security,” protested a journalist, who did not wish to be named for fear of a reprisal. Somalia is one of the world’s most dangerous countries for journalists to work as dozens of have been killed in the past few years.
Key Headlines
- Somalia’s New Controversial Media Law Takes Effect (Hiiraan Online)
- Somali President Calls For Speed Up Of Efforts to Form Hiiraan And Middle Shabelle Regions State(Shabelle News)
- Former Prime Minister Of Somalia Expresses Concern Over Return To 4.5 Formula (Wacaal Media)
- Man Arrested For Cannibalism In Somaliland (Hiiraan Online)
- Seven Refugees Fleeing Somalia ‘Thrown Overboard’ Off Coast Of Italy (The Independent)
- Calgary Imam Abdi Hersy Stripped Of Refugee Status Awaits Appeal Decision ( CBC News)
- Somalia’s 13-Year-Old Inventor Finds Fame (BBC)
NATIONAL MEDIA
Somali President Calls For Speed Up Of Efforts To Form Hiiraan And Middle Shabelle Regions State
13 January – Source: Shabelle News – 122 Words
Somali President, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud has called on the traditional elders convening in Jowhar to speed up their efforts to form a federal state for middle Shabelle and Hiiraan regions. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the conference on Tuesday, president Mohamud said his government is committed to provide full support to the establishment of the enter-regional administration.“I call on the elders from Hiiraan and middle Shabelle regions to burn the candle at both sides and form a unanimous federal state for both provinces,” said Somali president.On the other hand, several elders, politicians and scholars who addressed at the forum have welcomed president’s call and expressed their happiness of the conference to form administration for Hiiraan and middle Shabelle regions.
Former Prime Minister Of Somalia Expresses Concern Over Return To 4.5 Formula
12 January – Source: Wacaal Media – 85 Words
A former Prime Minister of Somalia, Abdiweli Sheikh Ahmed, has broken his silence over the political situation in the country by expressing reservations over the return of 4.5 system. This is a mode whereby political representatives are selected based on a clan sharing formula. The former PM warned against this tribal system saying it could spearhead conflicts, disagreements and standoffs in the country. Abdiweli promised to introduce a number of positive changes if elected as the country’s next President. He pledged to bring back stability and spearhead development in the country.
Man Arrested For Cannibalism In Somaliland
13 January – Source: Hiiraan Online – 192 Words
Police in the breakaway northern Somalia region of Somaliland have arrested a man for alleged cannibalism after residents discovered a severed head of a child in a remote village in the region. Ahmed Mohamud Gutale, the police commissioner of the Togdher region, said that the ethnic Oromo man was arrested after villagers alerted the police about a ‘severed’ head of a boy, whose body was found near the man’s home, in an isolated area.
Mr. Gutale told reporters that the man was arrested after residents raised alarm about his ‘suspicious’ movements.With no specific offense of cannibalism in the Somaliland law, officials said the man will be tried on charges of human ‘flesh-eating’. Police officials have also raised the possibility of placing the man under a psychiatric observation to determine his mental stability.
The arrest has sent shockwaves across the region, which has witnessed few cases of cannibalism since declaring independence from the rest of Somalia in 1991. Beliefs around the act of cannibalism spans dozens of years across Somalia. Most parents are convinced that perpetrators of the crime, who believably suck on the blood of their victims, are responsible for the disappearance of many children in the region.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Seven Refugees Fleeing Somalia ‘Thrown Overboard’ Off Coast Of Italy
13 January – Source: The Independent – 265 Words
Seven Somali refugees trying to leave the country by boat are thought to have died after the were reportedly thrown overboard by human traffickers in Italy. The seven, who were understood to be among a group of more than 40 people, were said to be en route from Greece.
A 10-year-old boy and 21 women were on board, with one woman’s body reportedly found washed up near where the incident had taken place off Puglia’s Salento coast, The Local reported. Traffickers then abandoned the boat in the early hours of Monday, said survivors. The body of a woman was later found near rocks near Capo di Leuca.
About 320,000 boat migrants have been accepted into Italy since the start of 2014. More than a million migrants arrived in Europe in 2015, most of them refugees fleeing war and violence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, according to the United Nations refugee agency. In Somalia, a civil war has been ongoing since 2009 with government forces, backed by African Union peacekeeping troops and US drone strikes, fighting Islamist militants Al-Shabaab.
At least 3,692 migrants and refugees from across the Middle East and north Africa have died attempting to make the crossing, according to a count by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM). Germany has welcomed at least 800,000 refugees throughout 2015 and Chancellor Angela Merkel has said the country could accept another 500,000 a year for the next few years. The UK is accepting Syrian 4,000 refugees every year for five years, David Cameron has said – amounting to 20,000 in total.
Calgary Imam Abdi Hersy, Stripped Of Refugee Status, Awaits Appeal Decision
13 January – Source: CBC News – 219 Words
A high-profile Calgary imam appeared in federal appeal court on Tuesday morning to challenge a decision to strip him of his refugee status because of outstanding 2006 sexual assault charges in the United States. The case has gone back and forth between the Immigration and Refugee Board and the federal appeal court. The board revoked Hersy’s protected status in Canada and he appealed.
Abdi Hersy was accused of sexually assaulting two female patients while he was working in 2006 as a respiratory therapist in Minnesota. Raj Sharma, the lawyer for Abdi Hersy, essentially made the same arguments he’d made in previous court appearances. Sharma reiterated the allegations against Hersy are unproven and his client’s life would be at risk if he was deported back to Somalia.
The prosecution argues Hersy misrepresented himself, and did not try to deal with the charges until it became obvious that it would affect his refugee status in Canada. Hersy lost his job and soon after his licence to practice in the U.S. once the reports surfaced. He then crossed the border into Canada, and was given protection as a Somali refugee in 2008. Federal Judge James Russell has not indicated when he will make his final decision. He could let the refugee board ruling stand or he could order yet another review.
OPINION, ANALYSIS, AND CULTURE
“Dressed up in a suit, Guled showed his inventions to Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali at state house. President Ali promised that the Puntland government would now fund his education. But for Guled there is another problem – getting funds to buy new parts for his toys, which he would like to be able to sell.”
Somalia’s 13-Year-Old Inventor Finds Fame
13 January – Source: BBC News – 633 Words
A 13-year-old boy’s passion for making electronic toys in Somalia has won him local fame and a free education. Guled Adan Abdi, from the north town of Buhodle, taught himself how to make plastic toys from bits of discarded objects, and then worked out how to motorise them by studying real cars.”I started making toys when I was younger,” he told the BBC Somali Service: “I used to play with them without any motor. But later I said to myself, ‘Why don’t you make them into a moving machine? So I looked at the cars in the town and invented my toys with the same design.”So far, he has constructed four electronic toys, including a truck and a plane, mainly using plastic from old cooking oil containers. He has also invented a fan that can also be used as a light at night. Guled lives at home with his mother and older brother and sister, and goes to a school in Buhodle that is supported by Somalis in the diaspora.
But over the years he has missed out on a lot of his education and is only in the third year at primary school – a class usually for eight year olds. This is because his father disappeared in 2002 and is presumed dead. His mother struggles to earn enough from selling anjeera – Somali pancakes – so when things get tough financially, the family sometimes has to stay with relatives in a rural area where Guled cannot go to school. But over the last year they have been in Buhodle and Guled has dedicated hours to his inventions as school lessons are over by midday.”From noon to late in the evening I usually work on my cars. I have never seen anyone make such things and I was not trained by anyone. I investigated and found out for example how a car’s tyres turn.” To get the toys to move, he connects them to a battery-powered control box, which is marked with a plus and minus sign.
TOP TWEETS
@Kadarnouh :Seven refugees fleeing #Somalia ‘thrown overboard’ off coast of Italy http://www.independent.co.uk/
@ferigom69:ISIS call for al-Shabaab fighters to defect and join them in Somalia | @scoopit http://sco.lt/8sjPpx #Somalia
@UNFPA_SOMALIA:Promoting midwifery education in#Somalia to ensure safe motherhood @GKyeyune@MahhaMasumi @emily_denness @Pilirani
@Somalia_Focus :#Somalia president Hassan remains in#Jowhar for talks related to the formation of Hiran&Middle Shabelle regions
@AbdulBillowAli:Patrol with #Puntland Maritime Police Force. Safeguarding our waters against pirates & illegal fishing.#Somalia
IMAGE OF THE DAY
A girl sits for an exam at SIMAD University, one of the private universities in Mogadishu, Somalia.
Photo: AMISOM.