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The editor of Waheen daily newspaper has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of defamation and spreading false news. Mohamud Abdi Jama will also have to pay a US$900 fine, the charges stem from an article in which he accused a police chief, and a director of Somaliland Electric Agency of nepotism.
Two independent radio stations were attacked by Islamist militia in Mogadishu on 19 September. Radio Horn Afrik was vandalised and looted by Al-Shabaab, while Global Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) was taken over by Hizbul Islam, who are now using the station to broadcast their own propaganda. Journalists at Horn Afrik were driven from the building by armed men. Cassettes and CDs were then destroyed. According to the transitional government in Mogadishu, five radio stations in the city have now been attacked or forcibly taken over by Islamist rebels.
Following the news that a journalist was jailed for six years for broadcasting an interview with a Islamist rebel chief, the authorities in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland have officially banned all journalists from interviewing rebels in the area.
The deputy director of a radio station in the semi-autonomous state of Puntland in north east Somalia has been sentenced to six years in prison following a court case from which the media were banned. Abdifatah Jama Mire was given the sentence after the radio station Horseed Media FM broadcast an interview in which he interviewed Mohamed Said Attom, an Islamist rebel chief who has been linked to Al-Qaeda. Seven journalists from the station were initially arrested but so far only Mire has been charged. All media reporters were banned from the trial, which ended in minutes.