‘Just travelling to work is a risk’
The murder of Nasteh Dahir Farah, the Vice-President of the Somali Journalists Union, in June was just the latest killing in Somalia, the most dangerous country for journalists in the world after Iraq.
Nasteh Dahir Farah was the eleventh journalist to be murdered in the last 18 months. He was assassinated by an armed gang as he returned to his home in the southern town of Kismayo. He worked for the BBC Somali Service and for Reuters and was only 26.
The day before Nasteh Dahir Farah died he told other journalists he feared for his life. “I do not know if I can work in this hostile environment anymore. I am so scared,” he told AFP news agency staff.
The President of the union, Omar Faruk Osman, recounts the hazards he and his colleagues face.
WHEN SOMALI journalists wake up in the morning, they start thinking about how they will get to work. First they look underneath their cars for explosive devices before they start the engine. They say goodbye to their families because they are not sure if they will come back alive.
They drive to their workplaces by zigzag routes to avoid armed men that follow them. They take different routes every day, or sometimes sleep in other houses to protect themselves.
One journalist was riding to work in a minibus. His boss called him, telling him to go to a place controlled by the government and report from there, but other passengers were listening — among them two men with pistols who had been instructed to kill him. And when the men got off the minibus, they did.
Somali journalists have borne the brunt of the escalating military conflict. Death threats, arrests, killings, fears of arrest and intimidations of media professionals are still alarmingly common. Officials of the transitional government, insurgents, opposition groups and gangsters — all have their own violent methods of silencing Somali journalists.
The situation in the country is rendered difficult and complex by the political deadlock and the lack of any unity of administration or governance. Beyond the murders, arbitrary arrests and threats, the real problem is impunity that means those guilty of the murders and other crimes against media people are never brought to justice.
With all the lawlessness, journalists cannot identify the perpetrators of crimes against the media. Islamic insurgents terrorise journalists whom they suspect of producing reports favouring the transitional government, while the government intimidates journalists by libelling them as “co-operators with terrorists”. The only difference is that the government arrests journalists, because it has a place to lock up them, while armed insurgents, who have nowhere to put them, just kill them.
Working conditions are terrible. Most journalists are easily hired and easily fired as there are no contracts or letters of appointment. Most are feeling the pressure of keeping their jobs, adhering to the management line and tailoring news reports as media owners want. All this is a threat to journalists’ conscience and rights and encourages corruption.
Despite these extraordinary difficulties, courageous news men and women, most of them young, are dedicated to being journalists in this war-torn country.
The International News Safety Institute has launched a programme of safety training for 48 Somali journalists. The first course was held in neighbouring Djibouti in June.