The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) is today denouncing restrictive action taken against Radio Shabelle journalists who were travelling today (3 June 2006) to Afgoye district of Lower Shabelle region to perform assignment in the district and the neighbouring areas..

As said by the administration of the Radio, journalists Muhiadin Jaku and Abdulkadir Olad were stopped by militias loyal to Colonel Abdi Hassan Awale (Abdi Qeybdid) who were controlling a checkpoint on the main road connecting Mogadishu city and Afgoye district. Afgoye is 30kms west of Mogadishu.

The Radio Station added that the journalists were using a minibus owned by Radio Shabelle, and the driver and the journalists were ordered to dismount the minibus, and to give in the minibus's key. After 20 minutes, they were ordered to return to their original destination, Mogadishu, as Abdi Qeybdid ordered according to the information from the FM Station. But the two journalists told NUSOJ that they have no other problem.

NUSOJ tried to contact with Colonel Abdi Hassan Awale (Abdi Qeybdid) to bear out this report from his side, but because of engaged lines, the attempted telephone contacts failed. Abdi Qeybdid is a member of the Coalition of Peace and Counterterrorism. But members of this coalition, who refused their names to be published, told NUSOJ that members of the coalition see reports of Radio Shabelle about the fighting in Mogadishu as unfavourable reports to them.

"We are reproachful of this unmerited act against the free determination of journalists and media to collect and impart news and information without restriction" said the NUSOJ Secretary General Omar Faruk Osman. "Media community must not be targeted on account of the clan or sub-clan that they belong to or their independent reporting". "We are urging the warring groups in Mogadishu to forget to count the media community to the fighting groups" he said.

On 1 June, incensed militias in Baidoa of Bay region briefly detained and physically attacked Ms Maryan Mohamud Qalanjo who works for Radio Shabelle. Maryan is now suffering from a ban on her professional work. In the month of May, operations of a sub-station retransmitting the news and programmes of Radio Shabelle in Baidoa were suspended for a short time.

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