- On January 6, authorities in the semi-autonomous Somali region of Puntland freed VOA Somali stringer Mohamed Yasin Isahaq. He had been held without charges since December 20, when members of the Puntland Intelligence Services took him into custody. His arrest came days after he reported a story for VOA on the plight of internally displaced Somalis in and around the southern part of Galkayo, Puntland. In November, Isahaq suffered a minor chest injury after police in Galkayo fired on his car at a checkpoint.
- VOA Somali chief, Abdi Yabarrow, was indirectly warned on April 23, by an al-Shabab official who labeled him and his BBC counterpart as people who have abandoned the Islamic faith. The official did not make a direct call for violence, but in the past, al-Shabab loyalists have killed those they deem to have violated Islamic law.
- VOA Somali Service stringer Muqtar Atosh was arrested April 26, 2009 in the town of Baidoa by the security chief of Somalia’s hard-line Islamic insurgent group Al-Shabab. Although he was identified as a VOA stringer, Muqtar was arrested not for the reporting he did for VOA but for reporting he did for a local radio station, Juba FM. Muqtar is the head of the station, which also carries VOA programming. Station operations were disrupted and the station was temporarily closed. Muqtar was released April 28.
- Somalia’s al-Shabab Islamist militia detained VOA Somali Service reporter Hassan Kaffi Qoyste in a town in the Lower Shabelle region while he was reporting on humanitarian needs on April 7, 2009. They released him after several hours. Qoyste allegedly entered the town without first obtaining permission from them.
- Co-Owner of HornAfrik/VOA affiliate, Ali Iman Sharmarke, and was killed in August 2007 and Mahad Ahmed Elmi, director of HornAfrik’s Capitol Voice FM station, were murdered in two separate incidents in yet another example of attempts to silence the independent media in Somalia. Ali Iman Sharmarke, a longtime friend of the Voice of America, and a courageous journalist committed to establishing a free press in his native Somalia.
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Alhurra correspondent Bashar Fahmi has been missing in Syria for 8 months 30 days.
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