Travel Guide |
August 11, 2012

News website correspondent still incommunicado 48 hours after arrest

RSF | August 11, 2012

Reporters Without Borders calls
on interior minister Hassan Darar Houffaneh
and justice minister Ali Farah Assoweh to immediately
reveal why La Voix de Djibouti correspondent Houssein Ahmed Farah was arrested two days
ago, where he is being held and what his current status is.

“According to our information, Farah is still at Djibouti’scentral police station, where he is being refused
visits,” Reporters Without Borders said. “No
reason has so far been given for his detention. It is intolerable that we are
still without any news of this journalist 48 hours after his arrest.”

Reporters Without Borders
continues to be concerned about his state of health.



Farah was arrested at around 11 a.m. on 8 August in
Djibouti-Ville by two police officers, Col. Abdoulkader
Ibrahim Gona and Col. Abdillahi
Hassan Boulaleh.

Reporters Without Borders has meanwhile learned that
Djibouti’s authorities have just blocked access to five Somali news websites – Waagacusub.com,
Sunatimes.com, Galmudugnews.com,Halbeegnews.com
and Qurbejoog.com.

Waagacusub.com recently
posted confidential documents about transfers of money between Djibouti’s intelligence
services and officials in Somaliland, a breakaway Somali territory that adjoins
Djibouti.



This is not the first time Djibouti’s authorities have
blocked news websites. The former web radio Farah works for and which is now a
news website– La Voix de Djibouti (lavoixdedjibouti.com

–

cannot be accessed from within Djibouti. To circumvent
this censorship, Reporters Without Borders created a
mirror site (lavoixdedjibouti.rsf.org)

that enables Internet users in Djibouti to access the website. La Voix de Djibouti‘s website recently posted some of the
confidential documents that had been revealed by Waagacusub.com.

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