Getting Away With Murder
CPJ’s 2010 Impunity Index spotlights countrieswhere journalists are slain and killers go free New York, April 20, 2010—Deadly, unpunished violence against the press has soared in the Philippines and Somalia, the Committee to Protect Journalists has found in its newly updated Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are killed regularly and governments fail…
Special Report: A Somali Journalist in Exile
Radio journalist Ahmed Omar Hashi is a survivor, but he has paid dearly. He’s been threatened and targeted for death. He’s seen his colleagues and friends killed. Now, like other Somali journalists, Hashi struggles in exile and hopes one day he can resume his work. By Karen Phillips
Video Report: A Somali Journalist in Exile
In “A Somali Journalist in Exile,” CPJ talks with Ahmed Omar Hashi, a former editor for the independent Mogadishu station Radio Shabelle. After three attempts were made on Hashi’s life, CPJ and local partners helped him relocate to Uganda. Hashi talks about the many challenges in his new life in exile and his hopes to…
Exiled Somali journalists face new challenges in Nairobi
Somali journalists Hassan Ali Gesey and Abdihakim Jimale are roommates these days, living in a tiny, graffiti-ridden room in Nairobi, Kenya. Neither would have wanted to eke out an existence like this, but dire circumstances brought them together—starting with the night three years ago that Gesey saved Jimale’s life.
Somali insurgents ban BBC
New York, April 9, 2010—Al-Shabaab insurgents in Somalia have banned all BBC broadcasts from the areas they control and confiscated the corporation’s FM transmitters and satellite dishes. Local journalists told CPJ that Al-Shabaab issued a statement today announcing the immediate ban, claiming the BBC carried the “agenda of the crusaders” and “opposed an Islamic administration.”
Somali editor, family make a new life in exile
KAMPALA, Uganda As Ahmed Omar Hashi strode toward me, his figure silhouetted in the bright morning light, it was hard to believe this was the same man who left Mogadishu on a stretcher just six months earlier after suffering a near-fatal gunshot wound. As I reached to shake his hand, he pulled me into a…
African journalists face increasing risk for foreign outlets
“I didn’t wear the bulletproof jacket and helmet that Reuters gave me,” explained veteran Somali journalist Sahal Abdulle to a packed crowd at Nairobi’s Serena Hotel for CPJ’s launch of Attacks on the Press. “It didn’t seem right when my colleagues, local journalists, were risking their lives trying to cover the same event.” Abdulle, like…
In African hot spots, journalists forced into exile
By Tom Rhodes High numbers of local journalists have fled several African countries in recent years after being assaulted, threatened, or imprisoned, leaving a deep void in professional reporting. The starkest examples are in the Horn of Africa nations of Somalia, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, where dozens of journalists have been forced into exile. Zimbabwe, Rwanda,…
Attacks on the Press 2009: Somalia
Top Developments• Al-Shabaab terrorizes media through violence, threats, censorship.• Many local journalists flee into exile, leaving a void in coverage. Key Statistic9: Journalists killed in direct relation to their work in 2009. Somalia was among the world’s deadliest countries in 2009, surpassing violent hot spots such as Iraq and Pakistan. As conflict continued between the…