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Cops shut down radio station
18/04/2008 07:28 - (SA)
Mogadishu - Police in Somalia raided and closed an independent radio station in the capital Mogadishu on Thursday, arresting five journalists, a local rights panel and members of staff said.
"A dozen of policemen aboard minibuses entered the building and they arrested five of my colleagues including the editor," said Omar Habeb, a producer at Radio Voice of Peace.
Mohamed Ali Irole, the radio station's director, said he had contacted authorities to release the journalists.
"I went to the CID (Criminal Investigations Department) centre where the journalists are detained and some officials told me that the raid followed a news item on brief fighting between the government forces and opposing groups that we broadcast last night," he added.
The National Union of Somali Journalists condemned the incident, the latest in a series of raids on Somali media.
"Police brutality against media is intolerable and the transitional government must stop violence against journalists and media houses carried out by its soldiers," said the union's secretary general Omar Faruk Osman.
International press watchdogs have chided the weak Somali government for its heavy-handed crackdown on free media.
The war-wracked Horn of Africa nation is ranked as the world's second-deadliest country for journalists by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Mogadishu has been wracked by violence between Ethiopian-backed government forces and Islamist insurgents since late 2006. The country itself has been lawless since the 1991 ouster of dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
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