The Horn of African Journalists Association (HAJA) Declare Haatuf Journalists As “Prisoners Of Conscience and crime against freedom and regional stability”.

Hargeisa, February 9, 2007 – The Horn of African Journalist Association (HAJA) and Reporters Without Borders jointly releases an appeal about the horrible conditions of the journalist jailed in a secret prisons.

The Horn of African Journalist Association (HAJA) based In Canada, declare Haatuf Journalists As “Prisoners Of Conscience and crime against freedom and regional stability”. The leaders SNM (Somalia National Movement) veterans in Somaliland called on the government to release the detained Haatuf journalists on Thursday. In a press statement issued by the veterans at a meeting held in SOOYAAL Veterans Association headquarters in Hargeysa said, ‘we strongly condemn the arrest and unlawful detention of Haatuf journalist by the government’.

The veterans said in the press conference that this type of action taken by the government brings shame to the country and people of Somaliland. They said, ‘we had fought a bloodily battle against a government which repressed and killed its people. Many lives were lost and properties destroyed in that war. Today, the government we brought into power and authority is doing the same thing as the one we had fought against and destroyed in 1991’.

The ex-freedom fighters who fought for the Somali National Movement's liberation struggle against Somalia's late dictator Siyad Barre in the 1980s, were arrested in Hargeysa by the Somaliland police. Mohamed Ahmed Gahnug (Ba'ood) and Ahmed Omar Abdillahi (Hamarji) were seized only a few hours after they had attended a veterans meeting that called on Somaliland President Dahir Rayale to immediately and unconditionally release from prison the three Haatuf journalists.

The Horn of African Journalist Association (HAJA) and Reporters Without Borders today reiterated its appeal to the authorities in Somaliland to release three newspaper journalists who have been held for several weeks and have just been moved from the Somaliland capital of Hargeisa to a unknown and secret jails.

“The Somaliland government’s inflexibility is dangerous,” the press freedom organization said. “It shows that the authorities are ready to commit any kind of abuse when journalists criticize the president and his associates. This aggressive use of the police and judicial system is liable to undermine the credibility of all the efforts since 1991 to turn Somaliland into a democratic enclave within Somalia.”

The publisher of the privately owned, Hargeisa based daily news paper Haatuf, Yuusuf Gabobe, and his editor, Ali Abdi Diini, were due to have appeared before a regional court in Hargeisa on 4 February, but were transferred to a prison in Mandera, a small locality between Hargeisa and the coastal town of Berbera. They had previously been held at Hargeisa police headquarters since their arrest on 2 January.

Haatuf’s correspondent in Borama, Mohamed Omar, who was arrested at his home on 14 January and detained in the Kodbur police station in Hargeisa, has also been taken to Mandera. According to the staff of Haatuf, Gabobe is in poor health and Mandera does not have the medical facilities he needs.

Jamal Sheikh Abiib, Geeska Afrika & HAN reporter in Hargeisa,   Somaliland .

HAN Note: Somaliland Haatuf Journalist’s imprisoned executives moved to unknown security jails.