Somalia: Further information on prisoners of conscience / incommunicado detention / fear of ill-treatment

Index Number: AFR 52/008/2007
Date Published: 4 April 2007
Categories: Africa, Somalia

On 29 March the President of Somaliland issued a decree pardoning Haatuf journalists Yusuf Abdi Gabobe, Ali Abdi Dini and Mohamed Omar Sheikh Ibrahim. The three men were released from Mandera prison, where they had been serving sentences of up to 29 months for "reporting false information about the government, discrediting the president and his family and creating inter-communal tension." A fourth journalist, convicted in his absence of the same offences, has also been pardoned.