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Authorities in the breakaway region of Somaliland should unconditionally release journalists Ahmed-Zaki Ibrahim Mohamood and Abdinasir Abdi Nour and refrain from prosecuting the press for covering matters of public interest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, August 11, police arrested Horyaal 24 TV broadcast reporter Ahmed-Zaki and cameraman Abdinasir while they covered\u00a0opposition<\/a>\u00a0protests<\/a>\u00a0in the region\u2019s capital, Hargeisa, according to separate statements by the\u00a0Human Rights Center<\/a>\u00a0(HRC), a local non-governmental organization, and the\u00a0Somaliland Journalists Association<\/a>\u00a0(SOLJA), a press rights group, as well as Horyaal 24 TV owner Mohamed Osman Mireh, who goes by Sayid and spoke to CPJ via messaging app.<\/p>\n \u201cThe frequency with which Somaliland officials throw journalists behind bars is alarming. This trend of criminalizing the work of the media should end,\u201d said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ\u2019s sub-Saharan Africa representative. \u201cAuthorities should unconditionally release Horyaal 24 TV journalists Ahmed-Zaki Ibrahim Mohamood and Abdinasir Abdi Nour and stop targeting the press for their work.\u201d<\/p>\n During the August 11 opposition protests\u2013over an alleged attempt to postpone the region\u2019s presidential elections\u2013several people were killed, Somaliland authorities disrupted internet access, and police arrested at least 100 people, according to\u00a0media<\/a>\u00a0reports<\/a>\u00a0and a\u00a0statement<\/a>\u00a0by the digital rights group Access Now.<\/p>\n On Monday, August 15, police took Ahmed-Zaki, Abdinasir, and several others arrested during the demonstrations to a regional court and accused the journalists of participating in the protests, according to Sayid. Police did not file charges, and the court ordered Ahmed-Zaki\u2019s release after learning he was a journalist, Sayid told CPJ, adding that he did not know why the court did not order Abdinasir\u2019s release.<\/p>\n Police did not release Ahmed-Zaki, Sayid told CPJ, adding that he did not know the authorities\u2019 justification for continuing to hold him behind bars. In its\u00a0statement<\/a>, SOLJA said security agencies did not disclose which crimes the journalists were accused of committing.<\/p>\n Ahmed-Zaki and Abdinasir were transferred to Mandhera Prison, about 60 miles (95 km) northeast of Hargeisa, later that day, according to Sayid and an HRC\u00a0tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n CPJ calls, texts, and app messages to Somaliland police commissioner General Mohamed Adan Saqadhi and Attorney General Hasan Aden were unanswered.<\/p>\n CPJ has\u00a0documented<\/a>\u00a0several recent press freedom violations in Somaliland, including\u00a0a ban on the BBC<\/a>\u00a0in July and the\u00a0arrests<\/a>\u00a0of at least 18 journalists in April.<\/p>\n Source: CPJ<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Authorities in the breakaway region of Somaliland should unconditionally release journalists Ahmed-Zaki Ibrahim Mohamood and Abdinasir Abdi Nour and refrain from prosecuting the press for covering matters of public interest, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Wednesday. On Thursday, August 11, police arrested Horyaal 24 TV broadcast reporter Ahmed-Zaki and cameraman Abdinasir while they covered\u00a0opposition\u00a0protests\u00a0in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":182146,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10221280388112155_325455220908133":"","twitter_917774835383787521_917774835383787521":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182145"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":182147,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182145\/revisions\/182147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wardoon.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}