SOJRA welcomes the winning of Somali Cameraman to the International Rory Peck Award 19 November,2008 continue reading .

Somali news cameraman Abdullahi Farah Duguf has won the 2008 Rory Peck Award for News. The award honors freelance coverage of on-the-day news, where the focus is on the immediacy of the story. The winning footage Two Weeks in Mogadishu was shot in September 2007 and describes the human misery in the war-torn capital.

Abdullah Farah Duguf, known as ‘Duguf’, has been working as a cameraman in Somalia since 1993. He has also worked extensively with international broadcasters and agencies as a fixer, in particular APTN. Duguf says that the deteriorating situation in Somalia over the past two years has made it almost impossible for him and most other journalists to operate there. He has decided to seek refuge in Djibouti for the foreseeable future.

Duguf’s footage shows distressing scenes of violence, destruction and human misery in Mogadishu as the insurgency erupted into almost daily battles on the streets. Duguf captured the terrifying level of violence on the streets where there is nothing to shield local people – or journalists. At one point he became a target himself. In the city hospital he met a man whose wife and three children had just been killed in a mortar attack on their home. And in the makeshift camps outside the city, a woman asked him to film her starving children.

The judges said the film had “drama, vividness, humanity and context”. One said: “This is one of the most difficult stories in the world to tell. But he told it with clarity, courage and an amazing eye for detail. The camerawork is extraordinary in the circumstances.”

Duguf says: “In this civil war local journalists have become a target. During this filming assignment I received a lot of threats and intimidations as have other journalists, but despite this danger I worked very hard to ensure I remained anonymous. Never in the past 17 years have conditions been so insecure, dangerous and chaotic.”

To read more about the Rory Peck Awards 2008, click here.

Somali Journalists Rights Agency (SOJRA) strongly criticizes the closure of Radio Gaalkayo station, and the arresting of the director of the radio a popular radio in Gaalkayo Mudug region.

The president of semi-autonomous region of Puntland in North-eastern Somalia Mohamud Muse Hirsi (General Adde) ordered the closure of the radio and the Director Hassan Mohamed Jamac.
“Puntland elections Journalists and the radio stations faced harassments arresting and received intimidating phone calls. by authority and tribal leaders for their reporting on private affairs of Puntland officials and factional politic” said Daud Abdi Daud, SOJRA Executive director.

SOJRA is overpoweringly concerned of ongoing harassments and intimidations of journalists and media directors in semi-autonomous region of Puntland in North-eastern Somalia.

“We demand from Puntland president to end battle against media professionals and cleave to their officials responsible for their attacks against the media and as well as release immediately the director of Radio Gaalkayo” Daud Abdi added.

The growing hostility against journalists and media outlets obstructs the freedom of expression in the country there for In this observe, SOJRA is requesting the parties to the conflict in Somalia to respect journalists and their stations and help the journalists work for the country.

The Somali Journalists Rights Agency (SOJRA) is shocked to find out and condemning the arrest of freelancer journalist Abdi-asiis Suleiman Ahmed, in Las’anood on 01 November, 2008 and this is not the first imprisonment of this journalist inside Las’anood district in Soul region.

Journalists in Las’anood have been receiving in the past months all sorts of threats from the administration who is keen to silence journalists.
“Las’anood officials in Somaliland administration adapted to directly and indirectly terrify journalists who want to report neutrally and in parallel” said Daud Abdi Daud, SOJRA Executive Director. “And we strappingly require Las’anood authorities to respect journalists’ professional rights and to release Suleiman straight away and unreservedly” he added.