Centre for Applied Human Rights
Abdiaziz Abdinur Ibrahim
Somalia, CAHR, Autumn 2013
My name is Abdiaziz A Ibrahim, I am a 26-year-old journalist. My mum raised me and my brothers and sisters. I am a degree holder in social science and I have been interested in social work most of my life. When the civil war broke out in Somalia my father was killed by armed militia, since then I have always been asking questions about why things are going bad. After I finished school I studied journalism as this seemed to me to be the best way to contribute to making a difference to the situation in my country. So my motivation for this work is both personal and relating to the difficulties in my country.
I have journalism and research skills, I joined this field in 2005 and I worked with local and international media. I worked for HornAfrik Radio in Mogadishu as a program producer and assistant editor. I used to present editorial programs focused on gender based violence (GBV), sexual assaults and media.
In 2010 the radio station was terminated by al-Shabaab. I began working as a freelance journalist and made my main focus humanitarian and human rights issues. I have reported and documented on a range of rights issues including abuses against women and children in Mogadishu, on internally displaced persons (IDP) camps, detentions and on child soldiers recruited by both the government and Islamists.
Through my journalism I have also contributed to international outlets including the Daily Telegraph and Christian Science Monitor. I was one of the few reporters whose focus was to investigate and report abuses against women, children and media workers in the country.
I have been involved in human rights work primarily through my journalism. As Somalia is one of the countries in the world where it is the most dangerous to be a journalist, I have often been forced to report on issues of attacks on journalists and restrictions on media freedoms. Journalists continue to be killed by armed groups, notably the armed Islamist group al-Shabaab. In September 2012 for example, I reported on the killing in a suicide bombing of three journalists. As a result of my reports, I received threats at the time by al-Shabaab who said that I would be next.
As a result of my reports, I received threats by al-Shabaab who said that I would be next.
I also documented and reported on the eviction of internally displaced people in Mogadishu, for which I interviewed families who had been forcibly evicted by government forces from public buildings they had been living in for almost a decade. Government forces beat people who refused to move.
Meanwhile, as a result of my work, I was arrested on January 10th 2013 with an alleged rape victim, her husband and two of my fixers. We were accused of creating a false rape story to insult government institutions. I interviewed the victim who claimed five men in government forces uniform raped her and I was arrested for conducting the interview. The case was highly politicized and I faced threats from police and judiciary abuses and government ministers including the interior minister and justice minister who publically announced that I was a criminal even before I was officially charged. I spent 68 days in jail and faced a controversial judiciary process. My lawyers Mohamed Afrah and Abdikarim Gorad succeeded to make it clear that I was innocent of the charges but I was sentenced to 1 year in prison because of interviewing a woman without the permission of her husband. On March 17, 2013, the Supreme Court released me after the same Attorney General said before the court all the charges against me were based on false information. However both my lawyers were killed on April 14 when al-Shabaab attackers stormed a court house building in Mogadishu.
The processes of the case attracted the attention of EU governments, the US, international organziations including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Committee to Protect Journalists, and media groups.
I left the country for safety reasons after four members of the police and intelligence officials threatened that they will not let me live in the country due to all the negative attention that my case had brought to the government.
Following my reports and efforts to raise awareness of arbitrary arrests inside Mogadishu Central Prison publicly, many prisoners were released from the prison in 2012 and international organizations began to follow-up on the issue. I also reported in-depth on the 2011 famine and the plight of people affected by this famine, helping to prompt the international aid community into action. I have also tried to report on the question of rape by government forces in Somalia, which landed me in prison. My case brought attention to internally displaced women in Mogadishu and the issue was subsequently discussed at a national consultative conference which aimed to reform the justice and police systems.
I believe that the media is a powerful tool to advocate for, bring justice to, and challenge the actions of the armed people and Somali government authorities.
I'm excited to be at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, to gain knowledge from the lecturers, staff and fellows from across the world, who have experienced challenges as a result of their human rights work. While I've been in York I haven't had to check at any point who is walking behind me and I have no worries about anything terrible happening or people trying to murder me.
Success story
In January 2014 Abdiaziz was one of three journalists awarded the Oxfam Novib/PEN International free expression award.