No Impunity for Somalia's Death Squad
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has launched a campaign against impunity in the killing of journalist and union leader Nasteh Dahir Farah.
Farah, NUSOJ's Vice President and a reporter for the BBC Somali Service and for Reuters , was gunned down by gunmen in the southern town of Kismayu on June 7, 2008.
The union says he was the victim of a targeted assassination as he returned to his home. He was attacked by an armed gang who shot him several times in the stomach and chest and died within minutes of being admitted to hospital.
NUSOJ has appealed to the UN Security Council to recognise the crisis facing Somali Journalists, whose lives are regularly threatened.
Somali journalists face what are considered the most dangerous conditions for media outside of Iraq. In 2007 eight media workers were killed in Somalia.
In January journalist Hassan Kafi Hared, 36, was killed after remote-controlled mine exploded inside a road in Siyad Village of Northern part of Kismayu. Two doctors working for Medecins Sans Frontieres and their Somali driver also died. The killers have not been found.
Somali journalists have been subject to arrest, raids and other violence. Somali and foreign journalists have also been kidnapped and held for ransom.
The IFJ is supporting its affiliate NUSOJ in their fight for justice in Farah's case and in their battle to improve safety for all media in Somalia and end impunity for those attacking journalists.