Sunday, October 05, 2008
Ali Ilyas Abdullahi who works for the Holy Koran Radio was arrested on Saturday in the southern town of Baidoa, the seat of the country's parliament, which has suffered insurgent attacks recently.
"He was jailed without reason and knows nothing about the charges against him," his colleague Mohamed Adawe told AFP.
After Abdullahi's arrest, parliament speaker Sheikh Adan Mohamed Nur criticised local media of siding with the rebels, some of whom fired mortars at his house late Friday but caused no injury.
"The local media are not impartial. They are clearly siding with the opposition by favoring their violent acts," Mohamed told a press conference.
"It's true that the young journalist was arrested yesterday, but I can't give you more details on the situation that led to his arrest," said Hussein Mohamed, a policeman in Baidoa.
Islamist militia have waged a relentless war against the Ethiopia-backed government forces who ousted their movement early last year.
The war-wracked Horn of Africa nation was ranked as the world's second-deadliest country for journalists by the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists.
Source: AFP, Oct 05, 2008