Communicating Arts - Main Web SiteI've had a good day.
I'm not so sure about the staff at Shabelle.Net, which has yet to update the headlines on its English language web page. [1]
Brothers in ink: I don't care who you are, who your audience is, or what you write about, but if you write about it energetically, honestly, ethically, substantively, then you are part of the light that guides the world, and governments, among others, should leave you to your honorable vocation.
FM Radio stations representing Shabelle Media Network, Horn Afrik, and IQK (The holy Quran Media) were off the air by June 6; another station, Radio Warsan in Baidoa, had been closed two days earlier.
According to Aweys Osman Yusuf's article, the government's decree closing the three stations states, “They have breached the rules of the free media, confused the Somali population and opposed the existence of the Somalia government.”
While that may be--or not--attempts to reach an official through an "[email protected]" address on the government's web page have not turned up an answer to who, exactly, said what, where, and when.
The U.S. ambassador to neighboring Kenya, Michael Ranneberger, voiced concern: "The freedom of the media is absolutely essential in Somalia and everywhere else in the world and it is important that the Somali media be allowed to inform the Somali people the developments in an objective way,” he said. [2]
The sounds of silence leave always much to the listener's imagination.
1. Shabelle.Net, June 7, 2007: http://www.shabelle.net/news/english.htm.
2. Yusuf, Aweys Osman. "Somalia FM Stations close down; US shows concern over the closure", Shabelle.Net, June 6, 2007: http://www.shabelle.net/news/ne3060.htm.
Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim
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