On November 28, 2025, Mohamed Abdi Abdillahi announced on Facebook that he would publish an interview with people who allegedly witnessed “two white foreigners … doing something unusual” in Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway region of Somaliland.
Mohamed told CPJ that he intended to publish the report, which was about homosexual conduct, the following day on his Facebook page, where he posts news and commentary about Somaliland to some 146,000 followers. Somaliland, which declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but lacks international recognition, uses the same penal code as Somalia which criminalizes same sex relations.
On November 29, a vehicle obstructed the car in which Mohamed was travelling with three other journalists and four armed plainclothes officers got out and arrested him, the journalist told CPJ. Mohamed said the men took him to the city’s Criminal Investigation Department, where they confiscated his phone, asked for his password — which he gave — and questioned him about the planned report.
Mohamed, who is also head of programming at the privately owned MM Somali TV, said he had deleted the Facebook teaser post when his car was blocked, suspecting he would be arrested.
Mohamed said he was held overnight in a cell with about 10 other inmates and on November 30 he appeared at a Hargeisa court, without legal counsel, where police accused him of publishing “fake news” and the court ordered that he be remanded for seven days, pending investigations.
However, on December 1, Mohamed was released after police withdrew their case, following the intervention of the Somali Journalists Association, a local press rights group on whose board Mohamed serves, and on condition that he publish an apology for publishing false information.
This was Mohamed’s second arrest in a month. On November 4, he was arrested alongside MM Somali TV camera operator Ahmed Heersare and questioned for 10 hours about their reporting on protests by retired soldiers claiming unpaid dues from the government.
CPJ’s emailed queries requesting comment from the Somaliland police did not receive a response in early December 2025.