For Somali media, fear comes dressed as state, law and Shabaab

Somali Journalists at work in Mogadishu.

Somali journalists at work in Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab is still the biggest violator of media freedom in Somalia. PHOTO | COURTESY | NUSOJ

The World Press Freedom was marked on May 3 with calls for an end to gagging of the media. In the region, Somali practitioners repeated an old song: “calling for an end to impunity”.

Somalia has been the worst country in the Horn to work in as a journalist. For the past 15 years, at least 80 journalists have been killed — mostly blamed on al Shabaab.