Amnesty International: Justice for journalists

Amnesty International has called for an end to all attacks against journalists and asked the International Contact Group on Somalia, meeting in Rome, Italy to adopt concrete measures to hold accountable those who kill with impunity.

In a press statement, the human rights organisation called on the Somalia Transitional Federal government to open a thorough, prompt and impartial investigation, with the assistance of the international community, into the killing of Muktar Mohamed Hirabe, the fifth Somali journalist to be killed in the line of their work this year and the second director of the Somali radio station, Shabelle, to be killed in the last two years.

Hirabe was shot dead on June 7, in Bakara Market, the capital Mogadishu, reportedly by unidentified gunmen. He was walking with Ahmed Omar Hashi the news editor of Radio Shabelle, who was also shot and wounded.

Bashir Nur Gedi, Radio Shabelle’s manager, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in his house in Mogadishu on October 19, 2007.

Amnesty International has described the attacks against journalists in Somalia as a means of silencing report about human rights abuses by all parties to the conflict.

Source: CISA