International media rights groups say Somalia’s U.N.-backed government is threatening and harassing journalists covering the violent fighting in the capital, Mogadishu.

According media watchdogs, Somali journalist Mohammed Ibrahim received death threats and was hunted down by government intelligence officials for assisting the New York Times newspaper on a story that caused a furor in the United States.

In an article that ran last month, the newspaper alleged that the Transitional Federal Government had contravened international laws by employing children as young as nine years-old as soldiers.  Government officials denied the allegation.

During a press conference on June 24, the deputy commander of the Somali military charged that those who had helped the New York Times gather information had ties to the al-Qaida-linked militant group, al-Shabab.  Last week, Ibrahim fled Mogadishu for neighboring Kenya.

The New York Times East Africa Bureau Chief, Jeffrey Gettlemen, told the Vienna-based International Press Institute that Somali government officials had threatened others involved in reporting the story.

Thursday, police detained Agence France-Presse journalist Mustafa Haji Abdinur and a freelance cameraman in Mogadishu for taking photographs of a colleague, who had been wounded during a battle between al-Shabab and government forces.  The journalists were not charged, but they were forced to destroy the photographs.

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VOA

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