Nairobi - A global press freedom watchdog said on Wednesday authorities in Somalia's semi-autonomous Puntland region have detained three journalists and have shut down a radio station claiming it aired false information.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the Bossaso Station was closed on June 30 and its director Sheekh Aduun and editor Awale Jama detained the same day for allegedly broadcasting untruths.
In addition, it said Abdi Farah Nur, editor of Puntland's Shacab independent weekly has been in custody since mid-June after being arrested for what his colleagues believe were critical articles he published about the region's leadership and Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG), CPJ said.
"Authorities in Puntland are doing a great disservice to their citizens by silencing the local independent press," the CPJ said in a statement received here.
Demanding for immediate and unconditional release
"Sheekh Aduun, Awale Jama, and Abdi Farah Nur should be released immediately and unconditionally, and STN's Bossasso-based radio station should be allowed to reopen immediately," it said.
According to the Somali Journalists Network (Sojon), the closure of the radio station and the arrests of Jama and Aduun were linked to reporting on the mayoral campaign in Bossaso, a key town in the country's northeastern region where Somali transitional President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed is currently staying.
Police in Puntland, which declared itself an autonomous part of strife-ridden Somalia in 1998 but is not internationally recognised, reportedly told Sojon the journalists were detained for broadcasting "false information", CPJ said.
Nur was arrested on June 19 in the region's capital Garowe after he resumed publication of his weekly newspaper, which authorities had ordered suspended, it said.
Somali officials in Puntland could not immediately be reached to comment on the CPR or Sojon accounts.