Head of the Intelligence Service of Middle Shabelle Administration in Jowhar ordered the arrest of Director of City FM radio Abdushakuur Shaashaa on Saturday evening, 09 July. 2016 and he now is being held at a intelligence detention center in Jowhar where intelligence officials say the journalist is being interrogated.

Middle Shabelle , the regional administration which NUSOJ contacted to clarify the issue of journalist detention said they said that Abdishakur and his FM radio were accused of operating in Jowhar without having license from local authority and Somalia Minstry of information but a journalist who works for the City FM claimed that they are registered in the region and the FM has been functioning in the last two years.

The Administration also said that Abidshakur’s City FM was recently airing speeches against peace and general security in the region but they declined to comment into detail exactly on this

Abdishakur Shaashaa is also the reporter of Somali Sat TV a London based TV and was working in Jowhar in the last two years. Journalist Abdishakur Shaashaa is active member of National Union of Somali Journalist Union (NUSOJ) and the role he had last NUSOJ General Assembly in Mogadishu on May this year was widely admired.

"We condemn in the strongest terms possible and call for the Middle Shabelle Administration for his unconditional release." Mohamed Ibrahim Moalimuu, Secretary General of the National Union of Somali Journalists said, "We call upon the administration to respect the media freedoms and freedom of expression which is currently under threat and without which democratic societies can not develop."

NUSOJ also demands from Jowhar local administration to allow the families and relatives of the journalist to have an access to visit the arrested journalist during his arbitrary detention in the intelligence center in Jowhar.

General Secretary of National Union of Somali Journalists