They Jailed him because he is from a minority tribe ( warsengeli). May Allah Punish Warload Faroole.Saturday, August 14, 2010
Director of Horsed Media, Abdifatah Jama Mire, was arrested late Friday after broadcasting an interview with Islamist commander Mohamed Said Atom whose militants are fighting the Puntland administration in Galgala area.
"The journalist was given a six-year jail term and ordered to pay a 500-dollar fine for violating the anti-terror law in our constitution. He paid the price of the wrongs he did," Puntland's deputy information minister Abdiqani Salad Gurey told AFP by phone.
"It does not mean we are violators of the free press. It is just our responsibility to stop anything that undermines the security of the region," he added.
Mire's colleague, Nuh Muse Birjeb, said security forces raided the radio station and took several staff members with them, who were all later released except for the director.
Puntland forces have been battling Atom's militia in Somalia's northern Galgala mountainous region. Atom is on a UN Security Council watchlist.
Regional authorities have said the remote mountains risked becoming an ideal hide-out for Somalia's growing Shebab-hosted contingent of foreign jihadis, akin to Afghanistan's Tora Bora mountains.
Source: AFP