New York, January 5, 2012--The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland to explain why they have held two journalists without charge since Monday.
New York, November 2, 2011--Authorities in northern Somalia banned two private broadcasters from operating in Puntland Tuesday, blaming independent media coverage for undermining national security as they grapple with potentially destabilizing violence in the region, according to local journalists and news reports.
The Information Ministry in semi-autonomous Puntland banned the local operations of Universal TV and Somali Channel TV, accusing the stations of "working with the peace haters who are always against the Puntland security," according to CPJ's translation of the directive.
New York, October 19, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns Tuesday's grenade attack on a Puntland radio station and calls for authorities to take immediate steps to identify and prosecute the perpetrators. This was the third local radio station hit with a blast in three months, CPJ research showed.
On Tuesday evening, a grenade was hurled into the studios of Radio Galkayo, a community radio station covering local news and current affairs based in the city of Galkayo in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. The blast destroyed the back wall and a window to the office of Managing Director Abdullahi Hersi, local reports said. No one was hurt in the attack, but the station's staff was working in fear, the reports said. In January 2010, Radio Galkayo was damaged by a grenade that destroyed one studio and a roof, local journalists said.
New York, September 15, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the Wednesday evening shooting of a Somali radio journalist in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland, and calls on the government to immediately take steps to bring the perpetrators to justice.
Unknown gunmen shot 20-year-old radio journalist Horriyo Abdulkadir Sheik Ali four times on Wednesday evening as she left her office at Radio Galkayo, the state broadcaster in the Garsoor neighborhood of Galkayo, local journalists told CPJ. She was hospitalized in stable condition with wounds to the stomach, chest, and right hand, news reports said.
New York, August 1, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the decision by authorities in Puntland, Somalia's northeastern semiautonomous region, to set free reporter Faysal Mohamed Hassan on Sunday. Mohamed, who wrote for the private news site Hiiraan Online, was serving a prison sentence over a story claiming that two murdered men belonged to Puntland's security personnel.
New York, July 5, 2011--The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns a prison sentence given to a reporter of an online news Web site on Saturday in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland.
It was February 2008 when Bahjo Mohamud Abdi received her first anonymous phone call. It was a man's voice asking her to confirm who she was. Abdi was a presenter and correspondent for the state radio in Somalia's semi-autonomous region of Puntland. Abdi confirmed her identity and thought no more about it. But then she received another anonymous phone call two hours later--informing her that she was talking to the "Somali Mujahadeen" and that they could see her in the local shopping center in downtown Baidoa.
New York, November 8, 2010--The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes the presidential pardon and release today of radio journalist Abdifatah Jama, who was imprisoned in August for airing an interview with an Islamist rebel leader in the semi-autonomous region of Puntland. CPJ had repeatedly called for his release.
Jama, deputy director of Horseed Media, had begun serving a six-year prison sentence after being convicted on treason charges in a closed-door trial. Jama had appealed the ruling, which was based on his authorization of an interview with Sheikh Mohamed Said Atom, who has waged a guerrilla war against the Puntland administration since 2005.
New York, October 19, 2010--A pair of assailants lobbed a grenade Monday evening at Horseed FM, a private radio station broadcasting from the port city of Bossasso, the economic capital of Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region, according to local reports. After the grenade exploded, one of the attackers began shooting at an adjacent café, Horseed Managing Director Mahad M. Ahmed told CPJ.
