Mohammed Ibrahim

Nairobi, July 2, 2010—Somali government forces have been increasingly harassing independent journalists covering violent fighting in Mogadishu, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.

Military leader Pervez Musharraf resigned as president in August under threat of impeachment, leaving a decidedly mixed legacy on press freedom. As his power waned in late 2007, Musharraf shut down all independent broadcasters for a time and then tried to impose a rigid “code of conduct” on the stations.

New York, May 22, 2008—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the fatal shooting of Express TV reporter Mohammed Ibrahim near Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan today.

Ibrahim, a reporter for the Express News channel, was gunned down by unknown men outside Khar, the main town of the Bajaur tribal area in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province, according to news reports. The journalist was returning by motorcycle from an interview with local Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar, according to the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists and Imtiaz Ali, a Washington Post correspondent based in the nearby regional capital of Peshawar.

New York, June 7, 2007—Three private broadcasters covering a government security crackdown in the aftermath of Sunday's deadly suicide bombing of the residence of the Somali prime minister in the capital, Mogadishu, were indefinitely shuttered on Wednesday after authorities accused the stations of fomenting unrest, according to news reports and local journalists.

HornAfrik Radio, the first independent broadcaster in Somalia's history, the leading independent station Radio Shabelle, and the private station Radio IQK (Holy Quran Radio) remained off the air today, a day after being shut down by an order of the Somali Information Ministry. HornAfrik Co-Director Ali Sharmarke was briefly detained today and the offices of Shabelle Radio were searched for weapons in the ongoing security crackdown in response to a string of deadly suicide bombings and attacks targeting the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies, according to independent local journalists. Guns carried by the stations' security personnel were also confiscated, they said.

New York, March 14, 2007—A reporter for a leading broadcaster in the capital Mogadishu, has been jailed incommunicado since Friday by Somalia’s Ethiopian-backed transitional government while reporting on a story, local journalists told CPJ.

Hassan Sade Dhaqane of private HornAfrik radio, the country’s first independent broadcaster, was arrested by three security agents while reporting on a security operation by peacekeeping Ugandan troops near Mogadishu’s airport, HornAfrik Co-manager Ali Iman Sharmake told CPJ. Dozens of people have been killed during increasing insurgent attacks against government forces, Ethiopian troops and a newly-deployed African Union force of 1,200 Ugandan soldiers, according to international news reports. The reason for Dhaqane’s arrest remains unknown, according to local journalists.

New York, December 18, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by an upsurge in arrests and the harassment of journalists by rival groups battling for control of Somalia. Both the Islamists who hold Mogadishu and the U.N.-backed transitional government based in Baidoa, northwest of the capital, have cracked down on the press this month.

On December 17, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) in Mogadishu detained leaders of the respected National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) at the airport. They prevented NUSOJ Secretary-General Omar Faruk Osman from boarding a plane for Dubai, and also detained the union’s Organizing Secretary Ali Moalim Isak who had accompanied Osman to the airport, local journalists said. Both men were held without charge for nearly 12 hours in a police station where officials pressed Osman to reveal the passwords to his e-mail accounts, and questioned him about the purpose of his trip, he later told CPJ. Officials seized the journalists’ passports, cell phones, a laptop, and other documents. They have not been able to leave the country.

February 23, 2006

His Excellency Muhammed Hosni Mubarak
President, Arab Republic of Egypt
Abidine Palace
Cairo
Arab Republic of Egypt

Via facsimilie +202 795 3192

Your Excellency:

The Committee to Protect Journalists urges you to fulfill the commitment you made two years ago today to initiate legislation to eliminate prison sentences for what journalists report and thus narrow the gap between Egyptian law and international press freedom standards.

New York, February 23, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by the decision of a Cairo criminal appeals court today to uphold the conviction and one-year prison sentence of journalist Abdel Nasser al-Zuheiry for defamation.

Al-Zuheiry, a reporter for the independent daily Al Masry al-Youm (The Egyptian Today), had lodged the appeal along with two colleagues at the paper, Alaa al-Ghatrifi, and Youssef al-Oumi, who had been convicted of the same offense and also sentenced to a year in jail. The court overturned their convictions. It upheld fines of E£10,001 (US$1,743) for all three journalists.

APRIL 18, 2005
Posted: May 4, 2005

Abdel Nasser al-Zuheiry, Alaa al-Ghatrifi, and Youssef al-Oumi, Al Masry El Youm
LEGAL ACTION

The Committee to Protect Journalists condemned the sentencing of three Egyptian journalists to one year in prison.

New York, April 18, 2005—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the sentencing of three Egyptian journalists to one year in prison.

In a Cairo criminal court yesterday, Abdel Nasser al-Zuheiry, Alaa al-Ghatrifi, and Youssef al-Oumi, reporters for the independent daily Al Masry El Youm (The Egyptian Today) were found guilty of defaming Egypt's Minister of Housing Mohammed Ibrahim Suleiman in an August 2004 article. The journalists were not present for their sentencing, but could be arrested at any time.