Somalia’s al Shabaab rebels said on Friday they had taken the BBC off the air in regions they controlled because it spread Christian propaganda.
The insurgents, who profess loyalty to al-Qaeda and are fighting a deadly insurgency in the anarchic Horn of Africa country, also said they had looted transmission equipment belonging to the BBC.
“Starting from today all BBC FM stations in the areas controlled by al Shabaab will be off air and their equipment will be taken over,” the group said in an e-mailed statement.
“BBC is owned by England and it spreads [a] colonial and Christian agenda in the Muslim world. BBC fights Islam ... it is against the Islamic administration in Somalia,” it said.
The BBC broadcasts its London-based programming onto its own local FM frequencies in Somalia and local stations relay its signal. The BBC does not have any studios in Somalia.
Jerry Timmins, head of the BBC’s International Relations and Africa Region, said: “We are disappointed in this interference with our broadcasts in Somalia as in the end, it is the Somali people who are most affected.”
He said the broadcaster had no warning the rebel group intended to close down its relay stations and added that the BBC sought to represent all views in its broadcasts.
“The BBC speaks to all sides in Somalia — including al-Shabaab — and reports events as they unfold. It is essential for the people of Somalia that the BBC is allowed to continue to report accurately and impartially on the situation in the country without undue interference from anyone,” he said.
The National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) has decried a crackdown on press freedom in recent weeks and called the clampdown on the BBC an act of repression.
“This … is a strong demonstration of the gravity of media repression by al Shabaab. We are very concerned at the obvious intent … to get tough on journalists and media organizations that have taken an independent attitude of reporting,” NUSOJ said.
Somalis living in al Shabaab-held territories confirmed that BBC had gone off air on local frequencies but said programming could still be picked up on short wave.
Al Shabaab controls huge swathes of central and southern Somalia and has left the government, backed by the West, in control of little more than a few streets in Mogadishu.
Al Shabaab has already banned music from radio stations in areas they control and allows only Arabic Koranic chanting.
Paris-based journalist rights group Reporters Without Borders also condemned al Shabaab’s action against BBC and US-funded Voice of America.
“Al Shabaab has today added another misdeed to its long list of violations of free expression,” it said.
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
APPORTIONING BLAME: The US president said that there were ‘millions of people dead because of three people’ — Vladimir Putin, Joe Biden and Volodymyr Zelenskiy US President Donald Trump on Monday resumed his attempts to blame Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for Russia’s invasion, falsely accusing him of responsibility for “millions” of deaths. Trump — who had a blazing public row in the Oval Office with Zelenskiy six weeks ago — said the Ukranian shared the blame with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered the February 2022 invasion, and then-US president Joe Biden. Trump told reporters that there were “millions of people dead because of three people.” “Let’s say Putin No. 1, but let’s say Biden, who had no idea what the hell he was doing, No. 2, and
RSS