I am glad to welcome you in the city of Utrecht in Holland for you attend the conference which I believe it has a great deal of interest for everyone involving media. 

I would like to pass special thanks to those of you who have crossed thousands of miles from Africa and Europe to attend and show their commitment of being part of the development of media and human rights.

And special thanks as well to our guests from EJC, Press Now, NOVIB, African Journalists in Europe, UAF, WN and all other organisations of the Somali community in Holland who always support the media, and specially assisted us on hosting this historic conference.

  
On behalf of Hayaan Media Development Center, I would send special gratitude to Novib for recognising the importance of this meeting which is a forum brining together journalists who have fled their country and scattered across Europe, a new continent that pose challenges including reintegrating into systems and societies that are strange to them.

As many of you are well aware, the year 2006 was not a pleasant year for everyone as we had seen new waves of violence against journalists and the media in Somalia. And the years that followed were worse than previous one. We did not end 12 months without killing, wounding or arresting journalists, with only this year three of our colleagues killed, and yet we have a quarter of the year left. In 2007 and 2009, the death toll could reach 9 which is a shocking figure for a small country like this.

One last incident,  Puntland authorities have detained Abdifatah Mire of Horseed media accusing him being a threat to a national security by interviewing rebel leader.  He was handed six years in prison and a fine of 500 U.S dollar.

Continuous abuses, like those I mentioned, have forced the Somali journalists to escape the country taking refuge in neighbouring states, Europe and as far as Australia and the United States, but the new life in the adopted countries has prevented journalists from practicing their profession. Somali journalists in Europe, including the Netherlands are more than 100, but less than 20 are still practicing their careers.

It is very hard for every human whatever his or her profession is, to simply change his or her way of life and career in a single day, and it has never been our desire to do so, but the situation in our adopted nations has pushed us to face the new life and come up with away that we can be part of the people and benefit from available opportunities.
Knowing there is no security risk in these countries, there are other reasons that prevented journalists from practicing their profession in this continent.

1-       Lack of the integration with the people in hosting nations.

2-        There is no or limited Somali media houses, online print or television in this continent,

3-       The agencies that support media and human right in Europe and governments did not put more efforts in establishing media houses where the journalists can continue with their career so that journalists could take part the solution for their country while they are in diaspora.

4-       It has also been very difficult for the journalists themselves to establish a committed institution that can fulfil their needs, and research on how other organisations can assist them in their hosting nations.

However, with all those hardships going together along parallel line, we found Hayaan media Development Centre to lobby against violations, document the abuses and to help journalists get higher trainings.

It is reasonable that newcomers in this continent, especially, Netherlands to seek their rights and more assistance. Nonetheless, taking into account on our experience in the media sector in the last 10 years, and the short period that Hayaan media service has existed, we met different organisation that were attracted by our mission, and some of them, like Novib have practically supported us to hold this conference. 

Hayaan media has attended meeting in late August representing Somali journalists in Europe, and joined the umbrella for the African Journalists in Europe, and we have two members of a committee that will work in the next one year.

Today, we believe that Somali journalists are the eyes of the people, locked by the civil war in an open prison, and reconnecting our people back to the world is our priority. Reporting the plight of our people who experience the daily carnage in the country has desperately been the intention of our members so that we can inform the public and the international community from what is going in that part of the world.

We are up against anything that can distract that mission from the right path, and give our people back home  the wrong impression that we had been working to using the media as bridge to cross to western world  in search of better life and personal interests, and do not care about a country and people who count on us.

Therefore, it is necessary to ask for your assistance on holding seminars regularly to address all these issue.

On the other hand, I am strongly recommend to Somali journalists to be united, follow up what is going on here and back home, and be aware of the media transformation in both your adopted and home countries.

Finally, I am here to welcome you, and looking forward that this conference will underline the hardships face by journalists in the country and those in the Diaspora.

Thank you

Chairman of HMDC

Ali Dahir Eid

The silence of the Radio came after Al-shabaab today arrested Ahmed Omer Salihi who is Director of the Radio and reporter of Shabelle Radio in Mogadishu but later released after few hours in detention.

Speaking to the freelance journalists and reporters in the region, Salihi said we cannot continue our duty of broadcasting because of the orders given by Al-Shabaab. “Instead of airing one side of the news story we preferred to stop working” he added. Salihi is also the secretary general of  (JIJA).

“This is all about to eradicate the independent media in southern Somalia and that is deplorable act to the free world” Abdiweli Garyare, the  East African project manager of HMDC said

Hayaan Media Development Center also concerns about the situation of the two journalists detained yesterday by militants loyal to Al-Shabaab for journalistic tasks. HMDC again calls for an immediate release of these journalists.

Somalia is the most dangerous country for journalists in Africa as more than 20 professional journalists were killed and hundreds more wounded for the last three years.

if you want more information about journalists in Somalia, you can get our Website. ww.hayaanmedia.com

According to Juba Journalists Association (JIJA), militants loyal to Al-Shabaab in Kismayo raided this morning the house of Mohamed  Salad Abdulle where they put in detention.  Salad is a reporter for Somali Broadcasting Corporation (SBC) a local TV and Radio station based in Bosaso, Puntland, the semi-autonomous region in northeast Somalia.also he is a member of  JIJA.

In Beledhawo of Gedo region in Southern Somalia, Islamists arrested today Mohamed Abdikirim, a reporter for local radios of Horn Afrik  and Markabley. Both journalists were arrested for journalistic tasks.

“This is absolutely unacceptable and intolerable action against the freedom of expression,” said Abdiweli Ibrahim Aden ” Garyare” The East Africa Project Coordinator of “HMDC”  “The continuation of harassments could eliminate the free media activities in Somalia,” he added.

Hayaan Media is demanding for an immediate release of the two journalists with the respect of human rights and free media rules.

Somalia is the most dangerous country for journalists in Africa as more than 20 professional journalists were killed and hundreds more wounded for the last three years.

Members from Hayaan Media Development Center met with officials of the European Journalism Center on Tuesday 19 Jan. 2010 over the possibility of better relationship and cooperation between the two organizations towards promoting media activities.

The meeting took place in Maastricht, Netherlands as the HMDC and EJC officials underlined the importance of projects to enhancing the profession of the qualified Somali journalists spread out in the world particularly those still operating in Somalia under hard conditions.

The general director of Hayaan Media Development Center Abdullahi Jama Ali detailed about the insecurity problem in which the journalists work inside Somalia and their needs to be supported on the side of upgrading their professionals.

He sees the meeting with EJC as profitable and helpful to the continuation of the activities relating to energizing of Media doings.

The senior project manager Media Development of the European Journalism Center Josh LaPorte welcomed the briefings given praising HMDC’s efforts towards Media Development in Somalia regarding it as the appropriate and timely organization that has the capacity to maintain such greater media tasks in east Africa region.

“We as EJC works on media development in European Union countries and we carry out media projects in many African countries but we had no access to reach out Somalia because of the insecurity.  But now we can have the opportunity as long as we began contacting an organization based in Netherlands that works on media development and has the competence to perform projects inside Somalia,” said Mr. LaPorte adding that EJC will work closely with HMDC primarily creating trainings and workshops in Africa and throughout the world.

Abdiweli Ibrahim Aden (Gareyare), the East Africa project coordinator of HMDC who told the meeting that if full collaboration between EJC and HMDC is certain that would be a big achievement to the Somali journalists particularly those suffering in the countries neighboring Somalia.

Marjan Tillmans, project manager media development of EJC, speaking at the meeting pledged that they will consult with HMDC over the coming projects to meet the needs of the media people in Somalia.

Hayaan Media Development Center.

Utrecht-Netherlands.

Heavily armed soldiers from Puntland Intelligence Service (PIS) raided the house of Isak in Galkacyo town on 21 December 2009 where they put him in jail, according to locals.

Chairman of HDM Mohamed Abdi Farah said the detained journalist has earlier been a victim where he was wounded by the Puntland soldiers. “This indicates that Puntland is fighting against the free press. Puntland should stop the culture of silencing the media,” he added.

 “Puntland had been expecting to be a safe place for the displaced journalists but it should not be home of harassing the media people,” Hayaan chairman said.

Farah is demanding for immediate release of the VOA reporter who is still in the prison for nearly week and calling for the Puntland administration to respect the freedom of speech and activities of the independent media.

By HDM

“On behalf of all Canadians, I offer my sincere condolences to the families and friends of those killed in today’s attack in Mogadishu, and wish a speedy recovery to the injured.

“Canada strongly condemns the attack. Violence toward civilians and government officials will not bring peace to Somalia.

“Those killed include students graduating from medical school, journalists and government ministers responsible for education and health. Expertise in these areas is desperately needed in Somalia, and this attack shows that those responsible are more concerned with their narrow agenda than with the well‑being of the Somali people.

“Canada encourages all parties in Somalia, including the government and armed opposition groups, to work together to promote peace and reconciliation.”

Since December 2006, Canada has provided over $65 million in humanitarian assistance to help respond to the urgent needs of Somalis and of Somali refugees in Kenya.

The explosion occurred during a ceremony at which Banadir University students were being awarded graduation diplomas. At least seven other journalists were wounded. The figures for dead and wounded are only provisional.

“We condemn this attack with the utmost firmness and we express our solidarity with the two news media whose journalists were among the fatalities,” Reporters Without Borders said. “One of these news media, Radio Shabelle, has already seen two of its directors killed in the past two years, while other Radio Shabelle journalists have been killed this year.”

The press freedom organisation added: “With violence at a peak in Somalia, journalists who try to cover the country’s chaotic political situation are living a nightmare. Those who masterminded this cowardly bombing are responsible for the deaths of these two journalists. The use of blind violence must stop and should be condemned by all parties to the conflict.”

Radio Shabelle reporter Mohamed Amin Adan Abdulle, 24, and Al-Arabia TV cameraman Hassan Zubeyr Haji Hassan were the two journalists killed in today’s bombing, which occurred at the Shamo Hotel in a district known as “Kilometre 5” on one of Mogadishu’s main avenues.

Three ministers in the transitional government were also killed while a fourth, the sports minister, who is a former journalist and founding member of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), was badly injured and was reported to be in a critical condition.

According to the information obtained by Reporters Without Borders, at least seven journalists were injured by the blast, including Agence France-Presse photographer Mohamed Dahir.

No group has so far claimed the bombed but the Islamist militia Al-Shabaab was widely suspected. A hotel employee said one of the students participating in the ceremony detonated an explosive vest that he was wearing.

“We cannot cope with this level of violence anymore,” a former Radio Shabelle journalist based in Mogadishu told Reporters Without Borders. “Most of my colleagues now want to stop working because it has become too dangerous.”

Radio Shabelle was one of the nominees in the Media category for the 2009 Reporters Without Borders – Fnac Press Freedom Prize, which was awarded yesterday in Paris. The capital’s most respected privately-owned radio, it is also the one that has been targeted most. Its director, Mukhtar Mohamed Hirabe, was fatally shot four times in the head in the centre of Mogadishu while on his way to work on 7 June (http://www.rsf.org/Le-directeur-de-…). Two of his employees were killed earlier this year while his predecessor, Bashir Nur Gedi, was himself murdered in 2007.

Concerned by the growing violence to which journalists are exposed in Somalia, Reporters Without Borders awarded a grant of 2,000 dollars last July to send 20 bullet-proof vests to journalists there (http://www.rsf.org/Grant-to-help-pr…).

With eight journalists killed so far in 2009, Somalia is the world’s second deadliest country for journalists, after the Philippines. It was ranked 164th out of 175 countries in the 2009 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index.

Picture : AFP / Mohamed Dahir

In the defining speech of his young presidency, Mr Obama was preparing to tell the American people tonight that he has ordered tens of thousands of US reinforcements to Afghanistan to take on the Taleban, secure the country and hand it back to its own security forces within three years.

A total of 30,000 extra American troops, supported by at least 5,000 more soldiers from other Nato members, will be in Afghanistan by next summer and will start withdrawing by 2011, the President was expected to say in a prime-time address to the nation from the West Point military academy.

The timetable for both the deployment of the long-awaited surge and the start of an American withdrawal has been accelerated because of Mr Obama’s insistence on an exit strategy before committing the extra troops his generals have demanded. White House officials said yesterday that he has ordered the military to hit the Taleban hard and fast. He wants to show quick gains in the battle for the hearts and minds of the civilian population. Unstated, but as important to the White House, is the battle to shore up crumbling support for the war at home.

Robert Gibbs, Mr Obama’s spokesman, told reporters that the faster the US gets troops into Afghanistan, “the faster we can get them out”.

Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, travels to Brussels tomorrow to ask America’s Nato allies to provide another 5,000 troops. The combined US and Nato forces would amount to nearly the 40,000 new troops requested three months ago by General Stanley McChrystal, Mr Obama’s ground commander.

The new deployments, in addition to the 22,000 troops Mr Obama ordered to Afghanistan early this year, will bring the total number of US troops there to more than 100,000 — more than half of whom will have been sent by Mr Obama.

The scale of the challenge is staggering. It costs $1 million a year to station a single soldier in Afghanistan. New bases will have to be built, and huge numbers of extra tanks, armoured vehicles and weapons will need to be airlifted into the war zone.

General McChrystal’s strategy is a classic counter-insurgency plan: he wants to secure the ten largest cities, protecting civilians from Taleban attack. If he succeeds in building trust and security, the hope is that ordinary Afghans will begin to provide good intelligence on the whereabouts and identities of the Taleban leadership and al-Qaeda operatives. Armed with such intelligence, specialist units — like the hunt-and-kill squads General McChrystal led in Iraq — will seek out and eliminate the enemy.

General McChrystal also plans to pull forces out of the rural outposts, effectively ceding sparsely populated areas to the Taleban. He believes if he can control and protect the heavily populated areas and the roads that connect them, the country can be stabilised.

The first deployment of 9,000 US Marines begins next month. They will head to Helmand province in the south, a Taleban stronghold. They will focus on the city of Marjeh, hub of the opium trade and the Taleban’s bomb factories, which the 9,000 Marines already there have failed to retake despite months of fighting.

Next in will be 1,000 military trainers. Mr Obama wants the Afghan Army increased to 134,000 by next autumn, three years ahead of schedule, with 10,000 of them stationed

Source. The Times

The government was on Tuesday looking forward to its meetings with Chief Mediator Kofi Annan because it believes it has tangible reform progress to show.

“The ‘war on drugs’ is fueling HIV epidemics among people who use drugs around the world, and condemning millions of people with terminal cancer and with HIV/AIDS to needless suffering,”  said Professor Gerry Stimson, Executive Director of the International Harm Reduction Association.

In many countries, drug control efforts block lifesaving HIV services to people who use drugs, even where they are legal, Human Rights Watch and the International Harm Reduction Association said.  Overly strict, complex drug laws and regulations block access to cheap, effective pain medications, like morphine, relegating  hundreds of thousands of people living with HIV/AIDS, and millions with terminal cancer, to suffer severe pain.

Outside of sub-Saharan Africa, as many as 30 percent of all new HIV infections occur among people who inject drugs and within sub-Saharan Africa, injection drug use is increasing. In some countries, in particular in Central and Eastern Europe and East Asia, injecting drug use is the primary driver of HIV epidemics.

International health and drug control agencies – including the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, UNAIDS, UNICEF, the United Nations Development Program, and the World Health Organization – all endorse comprehensive harm reduction services as the best ways  to address HIV among people who use drugs, including those  in detention. These services include needle and syringe exchange, medication-assisted therapy (for example, with methadone), and peer outreach and education programs. Notwithstanding broad endorsement and overwhelming scientific evidence that these approaches work, they are out of reach for the vast majority of people who need them. 

In the joint briefing note, Human Rights Watch and the International Harm Reduction Association also expressed concern that criminal laws, disproportionate penalties, and law enforcement practices drive people away from lifesaving HIV services that do exist, and impede access to pain treatment for tens of millions of people who need it.  Some laws concerning the possession and use of drugs, and the possession of drug paraphernalia, can keep many people who use drugs from carrying sterile syringes or other injecting equipment, even where it is legal to do so, and cause them to avoid drug treatment or harm reduction services altogether out of fear of arrest and conviction.

Laws creating criminal penalties for incitement to use drugs or facilitating/encouraging drug use likewise interfere with peer outreach services. The pressure on police officers to meet arrest quotas as a measure of success exacerbates police abuse of drug users by encouraging them to seek out easy targets, like drug users, for arrest.

In some countries, people who are identified as, or suspected to be, drug users are detained, sometimes for years, in locked facilities for “drug treatment,” regardless of whether they need treatment and without due process of law. Basic medical services are often unavailable, and “treatment” often consists of forced, unpaid labor, and in some cases, physical and psychological abuse. The impact of drug control is often disproportionately focused on vulnerable groups and marginalized communities, such as African Americans in the United States. 

Human Rights Watch and the International Harm Reduction Association also expressed concern that laws concerning drugs and syringe possession, together with associated policing practices targeting people who use drugs, may increase HIV risk. The organizations called for greater discussion among governments and relevant United Nations agencies on these issues. 

“Of course these are complex and controversial issues,” Rebecca Schleifer, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch’s Health and Human Rights Division said. “But we must have the courage to discuss them openly if we are to fully understand what is needed to halt and begin to reverse drug-related HIV/AIDS.”