22 Apr 10 | Uncategorized
We call on the local radio stations to stop broadcasting the songs and all music. We give them a 10-day deadline and any radio station found not complying with the orders… will face sharia action. Moalim Hashi Mohamed Farah, a senior Hizb al-Islam official, 3 April
Hizb al-Islam is one of Somalia’s two main insurgent forces. The Islamic rebels control large swathes of the war-torn Somalia, imposing strict Islamic law in those regions. Ten days after the ultimatum was pronounced, 14 of Mogadishu’s FM broadcaster fell dramatically silent. From 13 April onwards those hoping to hear music had only two options, Radio Bar-Kulan, a UN-funded channel broadcast from Kenya and the government-run Radio Mogadishu.
Music might be “unislamic” to the Islamic militias, but residents say music “is the only break from the shelling, the gunfire and the general insecurity”. Even before the latest ban, music was outlawed along with football, movies, beauty salons and bras, in other suburban Somali areas subject to Islamist control men have been forced to grow beards. Proscribing every single tune is a visible sign of a minority group’s ability to instil a real terror in the populace.
“Journalists working in the radio stations have in the past witnessed broad daylight assassination of their colleagues and have now been signaled that they would follow the same fate if they do not obey these oppressive orders,” said Omar Faruk Osman, secretary general of the National Union of Somali Journalists. Unsurprising then, that those who want to survive comply with the militia’s orders.
The Hizb al-Islam’s order echoes the Talibans’ strict rules imposed on the Afghani population, first, and later on parts of the Pakistani population. In 2009, John Bailey, a renowned British ethnomusicologist, was asked by Radio Liberty correspondent Abubakar Siddique to give his opinion about the Talibans’ music ban:
You know, the Taliban like to invoke the hadith, that, you know, the person who listens to music will, on the day of judgment, have molten lead poured into their ears and you can read the rest of it for yourself …The Taliban were not against all forms of music, and they certainly permitted religious singing without musical instruments. This isn’t just the banning of music but it is a competition between different kinds of music.”
In an interview with a UN news service, Ali Sheikh Yassin, the deputy chairman of the Mogadishu-based Elman Human Rights Organidation said “We are talking about music as a sin against Islam, yet the biggest sin of all, killing humans, is being committed every hour of every day. What is more anti-Islam than killing innocent people?”
On 20 April, the situation for station workers worsened. The Somali Transitional Federal Government warned all the radio stations that heeded the Islamists’ ban they will be punished with a shutdown.Somali journalists can’t believe at what they are hearing. “Each group are issuing orders against us and we are the sole victims,” Abukar Hassan Kadaf, the director of Somaliweyn radio told the New York Times.
Update: Keeping its word, the government had closed Tusmo Radio and Somaliweyn. But it has now decided to repeal its order. According to Somalia’s Information Minister, Dahir Mohamud Gelle, “The Somali government is not happy with the oppression of the media and will always work toward creating an enabling environment where it can operate freely.”
14 Apr 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Islamist insurgents have banned music from radio broadcasts claiming its un-Islamic. Stations have already complied with the order, issued at the beginning of April, as workers feared for their safety. The BBC report that all but two of the Mogadishu’s 15 radio stations used to broadcast music. Last week, the armed Islamic group al-Shabaab banned the re-broadcast of BBC productions in Somalia, claiming they were against Muslisms and Islam.
19 Mar 10 | Index Index, minipost, Uncategorized
Two journalists have been detained in southern Somalia by the Islamist group al-Shabaab. Mohammed Salad Abdulle of the Somali Broadcasting Corporation was arrested in Kismayo, while Mohamed Abdikarim was imprisoned in Baladhawo on 16 March. Al-Shabaab claims to control most of southern and central Somalia and has a history of abducting or killing reporters. Most recently the group arrested Ali Yusuf Adan, a correspondent for Radio Somaliweyn, in the lower Shabelle region.
18 Dec 09 | Uncategorized
Index on Censorship has in recent years chronicled many instances of what we’ve called “pre-emptive censorship”: the willingness to censor material because of fear either of causing offence or of unleashing violence. From the Deutsche Oper cancelling a production of Idomeneo to Random House dropping The Jewel of Medina to Yale University Press’s refusal to publish the cartoons in Jytte Klausen’s book, the list is depressingly long. It is a development that, writing in the magazine last year, I described as “the internalisation of the fatwa”.
It is both disturbing and distressing to find Index on Censorship itself now on that list. I profoundly disagree not just with the decision to censor the cartoons but also with the reasons for doing so: that publication may have endangered staff and was “unnecessary” and, indeed, would have been “gratuitous”.
The safety of Index’s staff is, of course, hugely important. But where was the threat? Index certainly received none because no one knew that we were going to publish. Nor is there any reason to believe that there would have been danger had the cartoons not been pre-emptively censored. Islamic scholar Reza Aslan, describing Yale’s original decision as “idiotic”, pointed out that he has “written and lectured extensively about the incident and shown the cartoons without any negative reaction”. And, as Jo Glanville, editor of Index on Censorship, observed in an article in the Guardian earlier this year critical of Random House, pre-emptive censorship often creates a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. In assuming that an “offensive” work will invite violence one both entrenches the idea that the work is offensive and helps create a culture that makes violence more likely.
The question that now arises is this: what should Index do when the next Jewel of Medina comes along? After all, we cannot in good conscience criticise others for taking decisions that we ourselves have taken and for the same reasons. So, does Index now believe that it was right for Deutsche Oper, Random House, Yale University Press (and myriad others) to censor?
As for the suggestion that publication would have been “unnecessary” or “gratuitous”, I cannot see what could be less unnecessary or gratuitous than using cartoons to illustrate an interview with the author of a book that was censored by a refusal to publish those very cartoons. Almost every case of pre-emptive censorship, including that of Yale University Press, has been rationalised on the grounds that the censored material was not necessary anyway. Once we accept that it is legitimate to censor that which is “unnecessary” or “gratuitous”, then we have effectively lost the argument for free speech.
Index on Censorship is involved in many important campaigns, from libel reform to the defence of threatened journalists. Its authority in these campaigns rests largely upon its moral integrity. As a long-standing board member, I am deeply committed both to the cause of free speech and to the success of Index in pursuing that cause. What I fear is that in refusing to publish the cartoons, Index is not only helping strengthen the culture of censorship, it is also weakening its authority to challenge that culture.
