Amnesty International calls on the Somalia Transitional Federal
Government to open a thorough, prompt and impartial investigation, with
the assistance of the international community, into the killing of
Muktar Mohamed Hirabe. Muktar Mohamed Hirabe is the fifth Somali
journalist to be killed in the line of their work this year and the
second Director of the Somali radio station, Shabelle, to be killed in
the last two years, according to a media release.
Muktar Mohamed Hirabe was shot dead on the morning of Sunday 7 June in Bakara Market in the capital Mogadishu, reportedly by unidentified gunmen. He was walking with Ahmed Omar Hashi (known as Tajir,) the news editor of Radio Shabelle, who was also shot and wounded.
Muktar Mohamed Hirabe is the third Radio Shabelle journalist to be killed this year and the second Director of Radio Shabelle to die in a targeted attack. Bashir Nur Gedi, Radio Shabelle’s manager, was shot dead by unidentified gunmen in his house in Mogadishu on 19 October 2007.
Amnesty International calls on all parties to the conflict to end all attacks against journalists and on the International Contact Group on Somalia, meeting on 9 June in Rome, to adopt concrete measures to make accountable those who target with impunity civilians, including journalists and civil society activists.
Amnesty International has described – in a March 2008 document – attacks against journalists in Somalia as a means of silencing reporting about human rights abuses by all parties to the conflict. Somalia: journalists under attack .
