Somaliland Police Beat TV Reporter with Rubber Pipe

A journalist in the northern breakaway republic of Somaliland was attacked by police while covering a child custody dispute in a local court on Saturday, according to local journalists and news reports.

Police beat Hodan Abokor, a reporter for the state broadcaster Somaliland TV, during a fight among members of the public who were present in the court in the northern town of Borama, according to news reports and local journalists. Hodan was slapped and beaten with a rubber pipe, local journalists said. She received treatment at a local hospital and returned home a few days later, news reports said.

Information Minister Abdirahman Yusuf Duale told CPJ that he had held a meeting with the Somaliland Police Commissioner to discuss the attack on Hodan. He also said that the officer who beat the journalist was in custody and that a police report would be filed the next day.

Police in Somaliland have targeted journalists in the past. In the first six months of 2012, authorities arrested and temporarily detained nearly 60 journalists, all without charge, according to CPJ research.

CPJ