The Somali Mechanism for the Safety of Journalists welcomes the Mogadishu court’s decision to dismiss the criminal case against Somali journalist Mohamed Ibrahim Osman Bulbul and calls on authorities to desist from arbitrarily detaining journalists.
Somali police detained Mohamed, an editor with the privately owned Kaab TV and the information and human rights secretary for the local press rights group Somali Journalists Syndicate, on August 17, a day after he published a report on allegations of corruption within the police force.
He was denied access to his lawyer and family and charged in September with anti-national propaganda, bringing the Somali nation into contempt, causing false alarm, and publishing false news.
On September 25, a court in Mogadishu ruled that Mohamed was a journalist and could not be charged under the penal code and directed the prosecution to present new charges in conformity with the country’s media law.
The court discontinued the case when the prosecution failed to present new charges against Mohamed during an October 11 hearing.
