January 5, 2015 | Daily Monitoring Report.
Two more journalists arrested in Mogadishu, NUSOJ condemns the arbitrary arrests against journalists
05 Jan – Source: Somali Update – 269 Words
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has condemned the arbitrary arrest of two broadcast journalists in Mogadishu on Sunday January 4, 2015 by the Somali security forces, the latest in a crackdown on journalists in Somalia. The two; Mohamed Salaad Osman, the head of programs of Goobjoog radio and Ibrahim Haji Yusuf were arrested on Sunday afternoon while the journalists were busy covering an explosion in Waberi neighborhood, according to Goobjoog Radio, adding that the journalists were taken to an unknown location. The radio station on Sunday night reported that the two journalists went missing, after confirming that the journalists were covering the explosion.
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) calls the arrest a deliberate obstruction to the freedom of expression and intimidation and calls for their unconditional release. “Arresting journalists on duty is an obstruction to the media freedoms and the freedom of expression.” Mohamed Ibrahim, NUSOJ Secretary General said, “We call for their unconditional release and respect for the freedom of expression and the media freedoms.” The arrest of the journalist comes after Shabelle and Sky FM, journalists who have been in jail since August, appear in front of the regional court on Monday morning. On Saturday, the government closed down Radio Risaala, and arrested the director of Risaala Radio, Mohamed Abdiwahab Abdullahi, its editor — award-winning journalist Mohamed Kaafi Sheik Abukar, and reporter Mohamed Abdi Ali, after the radio station reported an unconfirmed Ebola case on Friday. The journalists are still in jail and the radio station remains closed.
Key Headlines
- Khatumo President: 4.5 clan power sharing system challenge to Somalia’s stability (Radio Goobjoog)
- Detained Shabelle and SKYFM journalists to appear in court (Shabelle News)
- Two more journalists arrested in Mogadishu NUSOJ Condemns the arbitrary arrests against journalists(Somali Update)
- South West State cabinet holds first meeting (Al-Shahid.net)
- Puntland forces step up security operation in Galka’yo (Shabelle News)
- Authorities in Kismayo launch rubbish cleaning campaign (Jubbalandi.com)
- Former Mudug governor: local leaders provoke clan clashes in Saho locality (Radio Goobjoog)
- Venezuela to chair the Somalia – Eritrea Sanction Committee (Tesfa News)
- Two Somalis cleared of terror charges (All Africa/The Star)
- Somalia detains journalists closes radio over Ebola (World Bulletin)
- Wheelchair user with just €60 in pocket taken to brink of deportation (Irish Times)
- Growing concern in Calgary’s Somali community following deaths of young men (CTV News)
Khatumo President: 4.5 clan power sharing system challenge to Somalia’s stability
05 Jan – Source: Radio Goobjoog – 215 Words
The president of Khatumo regional state in northern Somalia, Ali Khalif Galeyr, said that the 4.5 clan power sharing system has led to the spread of many challenges including insecurity, corruption, nepotism and embezzlement in the country. President Galeyr said that the system might lead the country back to civil war and mayhem if immediate action is not taken. “ The process undermines all the positive efforts meant to revive the country from over two decades of civil strife” Mr. Galeyr said.
The president called upon Somali people to think about the future of the country and start patriotism acts which can lead to the country’s prosperity, development and stability. He added that all the governments formed after the reign of late Mohamed Siyad Barre failed due of this complicated system and requested the federal government of Somalia, politicians and intellectuals to eradicate the ideology. After the independence, Somalia had a parliamentary system based on political parties. But a coup d’état in 1969 installed the Siad Barre military regime, disrupting the democratic process and eventually plunging the country into civil war. Since then, many people belief that a number of power-sharing agreements aimed at resolving the crisis have crumbled.
Detained Shabelle and SKYFM Journalists to appear in court
05 Jan – Source: Shabelle News – 199 Words
At least 4 detained Shabelle and SKYFM radio journalists, including the owner of the radio, are expected to appear in Somalia’s Banadir regional court in Mogadishu on Monday, lawyers and journalists said. The owner of the organization Mr Abdimalik Yusuf Mohamud, editor-in-chief Mohamed Bashir Hashi, chief of staff Ahmed Abdi Hassan, and SKYFM director Mohamud Mohamed Dahir, popularly known as “Arab,’ will be on trial on Monday in a bid to get acquitted.
Somalia’s Banadir regional court released the media owner and one journalist on October 21, 2014 while the other two journalists have been behind bars for 142 days for investigative reporting, lawyers said. On Friday August 15, 2014, security forces raided and shut down both Shabelle and SKY FM radios in Mogadishu after it broadcast fighting between Somalia, AU forces and armed militias, who were being disarmed by allied forces. However, the National Union of Somali Journalists has condemned Somali security forces for abusing their power and the law by raiding and closing independent radio stations and arresting journalists.
Two more journalists arrested in Mogadishu, NUSOJ condemns the arbitrary arrests against journalists
05 Jan – Source: Somali Update – 269 Words
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has condemned the arbitrary arrest of two broadcast journalists in Mogadishu on Sunday January 4, 2015 by the Somali security forces, the latest in a crackdown on journalists in Somalia. The two; Mohamed Salaad Osman, the head of programs of Goobjoog radio and Ibrahim Haji Yusuf were arrested on Sunday afternoon while the journalists were busy covering an explosion in Waberi neighborhood, according to Goobjoog Radio, adding that the journalists were taken to an unknown location. The radio station on Sunday night reported that the two journalists went missing, after confirming that the journalists were covering the explosion.
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) calls the arrest a deliberate obstruction to the freedom of expression and intimidation and calls for their unconditional release. “Arresting journalists on duty is an obstruction to the media freedoms and the freedom of expression.” Mohamed Ibrahim, NUSOJ Secretary General said, “We call for their unconditional release and respect for the freedom of expression and the media freedoms.” The arrest of the journalist comes after Shabelle and Sky FM, journalists who have been in jail since August, appear in front of the regional court on Monday morning. On Saturday, the government closed down Radio Risaala, and arrested the director of Risaala Radio, Mohamed Abdiwahab Abdullahi, its editor — award-winning journalist Mohamed Kaafi Sheik Abukar, and reporter Mohamed Abdi Ali, after the radio station reported an unconfirmed Ebola case on Friday. The journalists are still in jail and the radio station remains closed.
Southwest State cabinet holds first meeting
05 Jan – Source: Al-Shahid – 118 Words
The newly appointed cabinet ministers of Southwest state of Somalia had their first meeting in Baidoa on Sunday. The meeting was chaired by the acting president and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources, Mohamed Hassan Fiqi, and discussed current affairs and the security of Southwest state, especially regarding Al-shabab’s attack on the military barracks in Baidoa. The ministers sent their condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in that attack. The minister for information said they also discussed the action plans of the Southwest State administration. During the meeting, the finance minister and internal affairs minister read their achievements and plans before cabinet ministers.
Puntland forces step up security operation in Galkayo
05 Jan – Source: Shabelle News – 156 Words
On Monday, Puntland forces conducted security operations in Galkayo town, headquarters of north-central Mudug region of Somalia, police and witnesses said. Police officials said that its forces carried out a crackdown which was intended to arrest the perpetrators who masterminded the planned attack which killed a Kenyan teacher recently. Puntland officials stated that they have arrested dozens of people suspected of having connections to the killing of a Kenyan school teacher in the town, adding that they are now being questioned by police. The search operation is underway in Galkayo neighborhoods in a bid to improve the security situation in the area. The operation came days after unidentified armed men hurled grenades into Yameys primary and secondary school in Galkayo, where at least 4 teachers were killed and dozens injured.
Former Mudug governor: local leaders provoke clan clashes in Saho locality
05 Jan – Source: Radio Goobjoog -162 Words
The former governor of Mudug region, Mohamud Guure Gulled, accused local leaders of inciting clan clashes in the Saho locality. He condemned the serving governor of the region for creating division among the locals in the area. He said that Saho locality cannot be claimed by one clan or administration. “Saho locality is for all people in the area, they should live peacefully” the former governor said. Recently, the incumbent Mudug governor claimed Saaho locality to be part of the Puntland administration, and urged militias from Galmudug to vacate the area. The former governor urged the administrations of Puntland and Galmudug to actively take part in ending hostilities and tensions in the area. He called the local people in Mudug, particularly Saho locality, to refrain from the cheap propaganda aired, posted by media and circulated by people with personal interest that might lead to further confrontations and bloodshed among the clans.
Authorities in Kismayo launch rubbish cleaning campaign
04 Jan – Source: Jubbalandi.com – 137 Words
Jubaland authorities and the women’s community in Kismayo launched a campaign to clean up the interim capital city of Kismayo on Saturday. Ibrahim Timojilic, Mayor of Kismayo province, briefed the local media , telling city inhabitants to take any possible steps to protect its beauty generally, and Alanley neighborhood especially. “We have seen such a large number of volunteers that needed our encouragement. We also want citizens of other cities in Jubaland to take this as a good example,” the mayor said. He added every person should feel ownership, and take the responsibility to tackle issues like throwing trash everywhere carelessly. As they say, “cleanliness is next to godliness ” Jubalanders will likely do their best to make sure their city stay clean.
REGIONAL MEDIA
Venezuela to chair the Somalia – Eritrea Sanction Committee
05 Jan – Source: Tesfa, News -169 Words
H.E. Mr. Samuel Moncada the Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations is elected to Chair the United Nations Security Council’s Sanction Committee for Somalia and Eritrea. Mr Mocada replaces South Korea’s Permanent Representative, Oh Joon, whose mandate ended on 31 December 2014. Mr Mocada’s mandate is for the period ending 31 December 2015. Concurrently Chad and Jordan were appointed as the two Vice-Chairs. Mr. Samuel Moncada between 2007 and 2013 held the positions of Ambassador of Venezuela to the United Kingdom and Ireland. Previously he was a Minister of Higher Education in Venezuela. Prior to these appointments Professor Moncada was Director of the School of History, Head of the Department of History Theory and Practice and Head of the Faculty History of America of the Universidad Central de Venezuela. Interestingly, the Committee’s annual report detailing its activities for the year, which was to have been released in 22 December 2014, is still quarantined.
Two Somalis cleared of terror charges
03 Jan – Source: All Africa/The Star – 190
Police on Friday cleared two Somalis arrested on December 12 on suspicion of being terrorists. Police officer Philip Tuwei told the court that Aweys Omar and Issa Matan are in the country legally and are not in any way connected to terrorism. He said Matan is a refugee and has a refugee certificate that will expire in 2019. “I have investigated the respondents’ bank accounts and have not come out with anything connecting them with the offence,” said Tuwei.
On December 15, Tuwei requested the court for 20 days to hold and investigate Omar and Matan over terrorism. Tuwei told the court officers suspected the two were funding terrorist activities. On Friday Tuwei asked the court to direct Omar and Matan to report to the county CID office once every two weeks, startingJanuary 16. He also asked to hold on to their passports for some time and give them back only when police are fully convinced the two are not terrorists. Chief magistrate Stephen Riech directed the two to report to the county CID boss once every two weeks and they should not leave the country for a month.
INTERNATIONAL MEDIA
Somalia detains journalists, closes radio over Ebola
04 Jan – Source: World Bulletin – 257 Words
Somali police on Saturday detained three journalists and closed down a popular private radio station against the background of a report about a deadly Ebola virus infection. “The three journalists were arrested Saturdayevening by the Somali intelligent agency,” Omar Osman, the secretary-general of the National Union of Somali Journalists, told The Anadolu Agency. “They are all from Radio Risaala, which is now – as I speak – no longer on air.” He added that the Somali intelligence had ordered radio technicians to switch it off. He identified the three journalists as Mohamed Abdullahi, a director of the radio, Mohamed Abukar, the editor-in-chief, and Mohamed Ali, a reporter.
Radio Risaala had earlier aired public views on a report about a Somali national who had allegedly contracted the deadly Ebola virus while in Guinea-Conakry. The Health Ministry denied the rumor earlier on Saturday, threatening to take measures against those who propagated it. A communications officer at the office of Somalia’s President, meanwhile, said the three journalists had been arrested against the background of the Ebola talk. “I think Journalists should be responsible and not spread panic,” Haji Mohamud told AA.
Wheelchair user with just €60 in pocket taken to brink of deportation
05 Jan – Source: Irish Times – 510 Words
The loud knocking on the door came at about 11pm. The young Somali woman was in her pyjamas and lying on a mattress on the floor. She had spent many hours with her husband in hospital in Dublin earlier, so it had already been a long day. Three male officers and one female officer with the Garda National Immigration Bureau(GNIB) said they had come to deport her. Her husband was distraught. He didn’t speak English and had come to Ireland through a UN family reunification programme. As his wife noted later, he had never experienced anything like this before.
Would Ireland deport a 23-year-old wheelchair-bound woman with polio, travelling on her own with just €60 in her pocket? The actions of the State on that early morning in November 2012 indicated it would. Ireland has had a long association with the young woman’s homeland, Somalia, particularly since the visits by then minister for foreign affairs David Andrews and then president Mary Robinson during the 1992 famine.
Irish Aid has regularly contributed to programmes there. In 2014, about €5 million was given for both “humanitarian and longer-term developing programming”. For Hawo – not her real name, as she still fears repercussions – Ireland was a safe haven and a place where she could find treatment for her physical disability. She had arrived alone, aged 17, in 2008 with wooden crutches. She was placed in direct provision accommodation in Balseskin Reception Centre in Dublin and then transferred to Lisbrook – now closed – in Galway.
Growing concern in Calgary’s Somali community following deaths of young men
04 Jan – Source: CTV News – 231 Words
The recent shooting deaths of two young Calgarians of Somali descent has the local Somalian community searching for answers. “It is very sad and raises concern among the community,” said Mudhir Mohamed, the owner of the Jubba-Nile Supermarket in southeast Calgary. “We’re asking ourselves ‘What’s going on?’, ‘Why’s this happening?’.” Mohamed adds the deaths of two young men from the same community, in the span of two days, is unusual.
A New Year’s Day shooting at a house party in the southwest community of Killarney sent seven people to hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds. 26-year-old Abdullahi Ahmed, suffering from a bullet wound to his forehead which left shrapnel in his skull, passed away in hospital on January 1. The following day, in what police have determined to be an unrelated attack, gunshots rang out in the neighbourhood of Rosedale and a lifeless body was discovered. Family members have identified the deceased as 23-year-old Murad Omar.
SOCIAL MEDIA
CULTURE / OPINION / EDITORIAL / ANALYSIS / BLOGS/ DISCUSSION BOARDS
“With the whole country going up in violence since the early ’90s—how much Somali music has been saved?…But the goal of the HiddoSongs channel is to have it as a collection, in memory of Maryan, with the name of the singers…So it is not that Somali music is unavailable. But we are still working to keep it together as a collection, and make it searchable, by artists and song titles.”
Love songs at the dawn of Somalia
03 Jan – Afropop.com – 2, 503 Words
Lidwien Kapteijns is a professor of history at Wellesley College. A few years ago, she contacted Afropop Worldwide to say she was a co-trustee of a large collection of rarely heard songs from Somalia. These songs date from between about 1955, when the country was approaching independence, and 1990, when it was disintegrating into a devastating period of civil conflict. Professor Kapteijns said that the love songs in particular in this collection reveal a now-hidden chapter in Somali history, a time when the country was actively searching for a way to balance old tradition and culture with the coming wave of modernity. Kapteijns provides the principle voice in the resulting Afropop program, Reconstructing Somalia: Love Songs at the Birth of A Nation. Afropop’s Banning Eyre braved a February snowstorm to visit Kapteijns in her office at Wellesley. Here’s their conversation.
Q: Welcome. Let’s start at the beginning. Introduce yourself and tell us how you got involved with Somali music. But before we do that, how do we correctly pronounce your name?
A: The Somalis call me Prof. Ladan. Actually, it’s a beautiful name. Ladan has the connotation of health and wealth…As for me and Somali music, it’s a long story. I was a student at the University of Amsterdam in Holland, and I got really interested in Africa, and I realized that, in Holland, you couldn’t do African history. This then brought me to London to the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), where I did an M.A. called the Area Study of Africa. At that time you were not allowed to do Arabic, which was the language I was studying, as part of an M.A. on Africa. So it was actually a second choice for me to do Somali. There was a Cushitic reader whom most Somalis know as Professor Goosh—[Bogumil Witalis] “Goosh” Andrzejewski. He taught Somali and he accepted me into the program. So that’s how I got really interested in the Somali language.
“We are always beside men, never behind them. We are at the forefront of peace and reconciliation, but you men ignore our advice and inspirations, You suffocate our intellect, so it never sees daylight. Be warned, we are now awakening after a deep sleep and passivity.”
Somali women mobilizing for peace
04 Jan – Source: Somali Current -1,098 Words
Following the downfall of President Siad Barre in 1991, a civil war broke out in Somalia between the factions. The internecine conflict has taken its heavy toll on all Somalis, but women in general face a disproportionate burden. With many men fleeing and abandoning their families, women have learned to fend for themselves after their husbands died. Regrettably, the tribal hostilities terminated male dominated jobs. During the clan and factional conflict, Somali women took up crucial roles generally allocated to men as breadwinners and protectors of their families. In order to make ends meet, the women stood up to fill the vacuum left by the men. More importantly, women played an enormous role in peacebuilding.
There is a scant literature explaining the role of Somali women in peacemaking. Much of the work women did and are doing are not reported. A few scholars have mentioned the role that Somali women played during and post conflict era. According to John Paul Lederach, women traditionally could travel from their sub clan of marriage back to their sub clan of birth to create an informal diplomacy that appealed for violence to stop and peace negotiations to open (Lederach, 2010:26). Somali women evidently maintained communication channels and delivered messages between clans (Walls, 2008: 86). In warring lineage settings, women were dispatched as emissaries to pave the way for a reconciliation conference. This type of shuttle diplomacy helped facilitate male clan elders to meet.
Top tweets
@amisomsomalia: Full statement by the SRCC@MamanSidikou1 on the current situation in Somalia during his media briefing today. http://bit.ly/1zLH0E9
@Aynte: Fascinating war between Eric Prince of Blackwater & Pelton over http://Somaliareport.com among othershttp://www.washingtonpost.com/
@TObservatory: Somalia: President of Southwest sate announces new cabinet http://shar.es/1HxiAY #somalia#statebuilding #peacebuilding #peace #conflict
@Abdikarim_Abdi3: 3 day conference to discuss what development projects to implement in Kuntuwarey district (L/Shabelle region) opened today. #Somalia
@Vatescorp: #Somalia: #Galeyr #Khatumo president says 4.5 clan power sharing system challenge to Somalia’s stabilityhttp://ow.ly/GN0bm
@Hamza_Africa: Last time @RT_Erdogan visited #Somaliamany newborns were named after him. Not unusual 2 c baby Erdogans running around #Mogadishu streets!!
@UNOAU: UN News Centre – #UNSG Ban congratulates#Somalia’s new Prime Minister, urges creation of inclusive Government: http://www.un.org/apps/news/
@amisomsomalia: RT @aia_24: Farhiya Abdi,6’2 Somali-Swedish, first Somali in the Women’s NBA -LA Sparks#SomaliWomen #SomaliDiversity
@Rooble2009: New Paseo art exhibit ‘Wanderlust’ offers different looks at contemporary Africa http://newsok.com/article/
Image of the day
Journalists listen during a media briefing by Ambassador Maman Sidikou, the Special Representative of the Chairperson of the African Union Commission (SRCC) for Somalia in Mogadishu on 4th January 2015. Photo: AMISOM/Raymond Baguma