On July 20, 2026, intelligence agents in the city of Bosaso, in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Puntland region, arrested journalist Shuaib Daad Mohamed over his reporting on the port’s closure in protest against tax increases, according to the Media Association of Puntland press freedom group and the journalist, who spoke to CPJ after his release.
Shuaib, a reporter with privately owned Sahal Cable TV, who also publishes news on his Facebook page, told CPJ that two plainclothes officers, who later identified themselves as members of the Puntland Intelligence and Security Agency (PISA), arrested him at Bosaso Airport as he was escorting relatives who were traveling abroad.
Shuaib said the officers took him to a PISA facility in Bosaso, where they questioned him about his July 10 video report on the likely impact of the port’s closure on food prices.
He told CPJ that the officers forced him to reveal the passwords to his phone, searched his mobile money accounts, and accused him of working for an “external enemy.”
On July 22, Shuaib was released without charge, after two nights in detention.
CPJ did not receive responses to July 2026 requests for comment sent via email to Puntland’s ministry of information and via messaging app to information minister Farhan Ali Hersi, attorney general Ahmed Mohamed Yusuf, and presidential spokesperson Jama Deperani.