Somali radio ordered off air
2007-11-12 14:10
Mogadishu - Somali government forces on Monday ordered Radio Shabelle, one of the largest independent channels in Mogadishu, off air amid a crackdown on insurgents, said officials.
Military commanders summoned the radio's acting director Jafar "Kukay" Mohamed to their base and ordered him to stop operations without giving any reason.
Mohamed said: "Commanders ordered us to stop broadcasting and we just did that."
Abdirahman Ali Adala, the head of programmes, said: "We do not know anything wrong we did ... This is pressure on Somali media and nothing else."
The station broadcasts from Bakara market area, a suspected rebel hideout, where joint Ethiopia and Somali forces were carrying out door-to-door search for weapons.
Mohamed escapes death
Last month, gunmen killed Bashir Nur Gedi, the head of Shabelle Media Network - which owned Radio Shabelle.
In September, security forces besieged and opened fire at Radio Shabelle, destroying equipment and forcing it to close for 15 days after they accused one of the station's reporters of hurling a grenade at a police patrol.
In the same month, Mohamed escaped death after an assailant fired at him twice but missed.
Rights panels had called for protection for journalists in Somalia, where eight had been killed this year alone. More than a dozen had been arrested and five others had been ambushed and robbed.
So far this year, Somalia ranked as the second deadliest country worldwide after Iraq for journalists, according to Committee to Protect Journalists.
The Somali government had defied numerous international calls to relax its heavy-handed clampdown on press freedom, which had been choked by the conflict.
Bloody clan feuds and power struggles that intensified after the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre had torpedoed numerous efforts to restore stability.