SJS Raises Alarm Over Increasing Police Violence Against Journalists in Mogadishu Protests

The Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) is extremely concerned about and condemns the violent attacks by police officers against journalists covering protests in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu in the last past weeks. This alarming trend sends a chilling message to journalists documenting and reporting on public anger over rising taxes, which have adversely impacted livelihoods.

On Tuesday, 13 August, a female journalist, Hibo Mohamed Mohamud, who reports for the online news channel BTN TV,sustaineda leg injury after the tuk-tuk taxi she was traveling in was hit by police car. She was reporting from the scene of street protests staged by tuk-tuk taxi drivers in Mogadishu, who wereprotestingagainst increased taxes and demands for extortion.

The female journalist was holding her station’s logo microphone when the police car chasing the protesters, and sometimes shooting to the air, hit the Bajaj from the rear, causing her to sustain a cut on her left leg between the ankle and the knee. Hibo latertold mediathat the flesh on her leg was torn, and a doctor performed surgery to stitch it up. She is currently recovering and out of hospital.

On Tuesday evening, the Mogadishu police announced that they had arrested police officer Farhan Ahmed Osman, a member of the Hodan District Police Station, after he attacked protesters with a police car. They stated that his behavior was "against the conduct of the Somali Police Force” and that he will be arraigned in court.

On Wednesday, 14 August, Mogadishu police physically assaulted and briefly detained two Radio Danan journalists, Abdullahi Ali Mohamud (reporter) and Idiris Abdi Hassan (cameraman), while they were reporting on the protests. The police confiscated the journalists’ phones and camera, deleted their footage before allowing them to leave.

Journalists from another station, Cosob TV, alsoreportedthat armed police officers confiscated their camera equipment on the same day while they were covering the protest at KM4 Junction in the city center.

On 10 August, a group of local journalists in Mogadishu wereblockedfrom reporting on a planned forced eviction affecting public lands in the Bakaro Market. According to the reporters, police spokesman Abdifatah Adan Hassan, who had earlier invited the media, told them that "only cameramen” were allowed, refusing access to the reporters. The journalists later protested the incident and announced a boycott of covering police activities.

On the morning of July 28, police officers conducting the eviction of IDPs at the former Ministry of Interior building in Mogadishu’s Bondhere district stopped Somali Cable TV journalist Suleyman Ahmed Rage, confiscated his phone, and deleted footage and photos of the eviction and a protest by the idp community that followed the eviction. The police threatened the journalist with violence if he continued to record the eviction, forcing him to leave the scene.

"We condemn the police violence that resulted in the injury of journalist Hibo Mohamed Mohamud on Tuesday while she was reporting from the scene of the protests. We demand that all those involved face the full force of the law. We will not accept that such perpetrators are allowed to remain free, and we will continue to monitor this incident closely,” said SJS Secretary General Abdalle Mumin.

"We also express our extreme concern over the recent violent attacks, including detention, confiscation of equipment, and deletion of footage, against journalists covering protests in the past two weeks. Journalists performing this crucial and heroic duty must be able to do so safely,” Mr. Mumin added.