Somali Police Detain Three Journalists in Mogadishu for Questioning After Prison Torture Report

Three journalists were arrested, beaten with pistols and threatened with death by Somali authorities in Mogadishu on Friday evening shortly after one of them published an account of prison torture for The Guardian. Mohamed Bulbul, Abdihafid Nor Barre and Abdishakur Mohamed Mohamud were detained while in a restaurant in the centre of the Somali capital.

Members of Somalia’s US-trained counter-terrorism police unit assaulted them with pistols before taking them to be questioned by police, according to accounts the journalists gave after their release in the early hours of Saturday morning.

At police headquarters the three reporters were threatened by Mahdi Omar Mumin, Mogadishu police chief. Mumin told them he was “tired of arresting journalists” and that if they did not remain silent about the protests and other developments in Mogadishu, including the case of Ali, the only option remaining for them would be “death”.

The Guardian published a story by Mohamed Bulbul on Thursday in which Sadia Moalim Ali, a 27-year-old rickshaw driver imprisoned for peaceful protest and her activism on social media, described being tortured in Mogadishu central prison.

She said she was stripped naked by two male guards in a room monitored by CCTV, kicked, beaten with a baton and left for two days in a small cell without food. Bulbul has been speaking out about security forces’ violations and forced evictions in Mogadishu. He and the two other journalists had been facing sustained threats and intimidation in recent weeks.

Their detention occurred amid heightened political pressure surrounding planned protests expected to take place on Sunday. The arrests come amid an intensifying crackdown as public anger grows with the ruling establishment. The presidential term is due to end on 15 May.

Abdirahman Abdishakur, an MP and leader of the opposition Wadajir party, condemned the arrests of the journalists. He wrote in a post on X that the president of Somalia’s administration “appears consumed by fear, confusion as the end of its mandate approaches”. Media outlets and MPs said the arrests were unlawful and politically motivated.

Somali Stream condemned the arrests as “an illegal and politically motivated attack on independent journalism”. ” The incident follows the arrest of at least five local journalists on 6 May, when their equipment was confiscated, according to the Somali Journalists Syndicate. Ja’far Mohamed Jim’ale and cameraman Nur Hasan Ali remain in detention and their whereabouts are unknown.

Somalia ranks 126 out of 180 countries in the World Press Freedom Index. More than 50 media professionals have been killed in Somalia since 2010. Journalists in the country work in an environment of great insecurity, according to Reporters Without Borders, which described Somalia as one of the most dangerous countries for journalists in Africa.

The Guardian reported all details of the arrests, the beating, the threats, the publication of Ali’s account and the reactions from politicians and media organisations.