Journalist Murdered in Somalia: RSF Calls for Measures to End the Massacre

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calls on local and federal authorities to make every effort to identify and apprehend the perpetrators of the murder of a journalist and to take swift action to combat impunity and strengthen the safety of journalists in the deadliest African country for information professionals.

Everything suggests that this is a targeted assassination. Abdulwali Ali Hassan says “ Online ”, journalist for Kulmiye Radio , a media based in Mogadishu, and Universal TV, a chain based in London, was on his way to his home in Afgoye, about 30 km west of the Somali capital, when gunmen shot and killed him on the evening of Sunday, February 16. The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) said in a statement that the journalist had received several death threats by telephone in connection with his coverage of the armed operations carried out in the region against the Shebabs. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the assassination, but the modus operandi “resembles the operations” carried out by the terrorist group, the union believes .

If this is the first journalist killed in Somalia this year, this assassination brings to 50 the number of journalists killed in the country in the past ten years. In 2019, three of them were murdered .

“We condemn this new assassination of journalist in Somalia with the utmost firmness and ask the authorities for a response that is equal to the massacre that affects information professionals in the country, says Arnaud Froger, head of the Africa office of RSF . As long as impunity is the rule and no major measure is taken to protect exposed and Somalia risks remaining the deadliest country in Africa for journalists. A serious investigation to identify and convict the perpetrators of this assassination is essential, as is the establishment of a mechanism dedicated to the safety and protection of journalists whom we wish. ”

Investigations into the murders of journalists leading to the identification of those responsible and their conviction are still too rare despite recent efforts to end impunity. The police officer who shot SBS cameraman Abdirisak Qasim Iman in Mogadishu in July 2018 was sentenced in absentia to five years in prison. RSF continues to ask the authorities to make every effort to arrest him so that he can serve his sentence. Two soldiers who had tied up and left two journalists who were interviewing on the street in direct sunlight were also arrested and dismissed from the army.

Somalia ranks 164th out of 180 in RSF’s World Press Freedom Index