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SOMALIA: Government bans media reports of displacement, rocket and mortar fire

NAIROBI, 20 February 2007 (IRIN) - The Somali government has stopped three media groups in the capital, Mogadishu, from carrying reports on increasing violence and displacement of civilians, saying the media was exaggerating numbers.

"We simply want them not to create panic among the population," Gen Nur Muhammad Mahamud, deputy chief of the Somali national security agency, said from Mogadishu. "The country is under martial law, which curtails certain liberties. They are free to report but within the current martial law."

Muhammad Amin Sheikh Adow, deputy chairman of the Shabelle Media Network, told IRIN that the order from the transitional government was directed at HornAfrik radio and television, Shabelle Media Network and Radio Banadir.

The three media houses are the biggest in Mogadishu.

"Yesterday [Monday], we had a meeting [with Gen Muhamud]," Adow said. "He ordered us not to carry any reports about displacement of people, military operations involving Ethiopian and Somali forces and attacks [by unknown gunmen on Ethiopian and government forces]."

Ahmed Ali Mahamud, the director of Radio Banadir, who also attended the meeting, said the government had threatened to appoint editors to join the respective stations to monitor their reporting.

The stations, he added, would, however, "not allow anyone to sit in our boardrooms to monitor our work [because] it is an attempt to intimidate the media and it will not work".

The government order follows the killing on Friday of a reporter in the southwestern town of Baidoa. The death of Ali Muhammad Umar, an employee of Warsan Radio, was condemned by both the Somali National Union of Journalists and International Federation of Journalists (IFJ).

Omar Faruk Osman, secretary-general of the union, said: "This shocking attack is absolutely intolerable, and we ask the Transitional Federal Government to make a prompt investigation and find those responsible."

IFJ General Secretary Aidan White said: "There is a pattern of attacks on the press and violence against journalists which requires urgent official action."

Meanwhile, Mogadishu residents experienced another night of violence and shelling on Monday. "I do not think anyone slept last night. The bombardment went on till four this morning [Tuesday]," said Muhammad Ibrahim Rage, a local resident. "There are still families on the streets fleeing the neighbourhoods that were hit by the exchange of shells."

Mortar bombs, he added, struck a base for Ethiopian forces in Digfer hospital and Villa Somalia presidential compound, prompting government and Ethiopian troops to respond with rockets and artillery shells.

The worst-hit areas were Bakaara Market, Casa Populare, and Al Baraka areas [all in Hodan district, south Mogadishu], according to residents.

Somalia's transitional government, backed by Ethiopian forces, took control of Mogadishu on 28 December after the Union of Islamic Courts abandoned the city a day earlier.

ah/mw

[ENDS]

Copyright © IRIN 2007
This material comes to you via IRIN, the humanitarian news and analysis service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the United Nations or its Member States.
IRIN is a project of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.