Somalia: Journalists in Puntland show solidarity with jailed AJ staff
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- Posted On 21-01-2015, 07:58PM
GAROWE, Somalia Jan 21, 2015 (Garowe Online)-Media workers in Somalia’s Northeastern State of Puntland have staged a protest in support of the release of jailed Al Jazeera staff on Wednesday, Garowe Online reports.
Journalists have marked Somalia Press Day with a campaign demanding Egyptian government to free-Australian Peter Greste, Egyptian Baher Mohamed and Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy-who have been held for more than a year at a prison on possible charges of terrorism.
Somali journalists covered their mouths with a white masking tape that read:”#FreeAJStaff,” the popular twitter hashtag launched in solidarity with the three.
In 1973, 42 years ago today first newspaper ‘Xidigta October’ was published in Somali language.
Similar commemorations marking the date were held in Mogadishu and Bossaso.
Armed opposition groups toppled the country’s long standing military government in 1991, followed by inter and intra-clan feuds and more recently terror and high-seas crimes.
Somalia, a weak economy that forms the tip of the Horn of Africa got a more permanent government in 2012 following indirect elections in war-torn Mogadishu.
Reporters without Borders ranked it 176th of 180 states in the 2014 press freedom index.
GAROWE ONLINE
