The Paris-based
media freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) Thursday
sent a protest letter to the President of Puntland State in
Somalia, Col. Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed, following the arrest
of journalist Mohamed Abdulkadir Ahmed.
In the
letter, a copy of which was given to PANA in Paris, RSF's
general secretary, Robert Menard, urged Col. Ahmed "to do
everything in his power to ensure that the journalist was
released".
The journalist
arrested is the Editor-in-Chief of the private weekly, Sahan.
Menard said in a statement that the journalist did no more
than exercise his right to inform the public, as stipulated
under Article 6.2 of the 'Charter for Puntland State'.
The RSF
secretary general said police in Bossasso, a regional state
of Puntland, arrested the editor on 11 July. He was beaten
then taken to the port of the town and put in a container.
RSF said
the journalist wrote articles in support of the on-going Somali
peace talks in Djibouti, criticising the Puntland "government"
for boycotting the talks aimed at restoring a central government
in Somalia.
Puntland
has refused to attend the talks, which were initiated by President
Ismail Omar Guelleh of Djibouti and which started on 2 May.
Reporters
Sans Frontières also recalled that three other journalists,
Abdulkadir Ali, Mohamed Deeq, who work for the Sahan weekly
and Ahmed Mohamed Ali who writes for Mandeeq were detained
in Puntland in August 1999.
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