Africa 24 Media Photography

Two Radio stations in Mogadishu have shut down in the area controlled by government when the government ordered them to play music on air thus going against the orders from Hezbul-Islam and Al-shabaab. Somali Islamist insurgent group, Hisbul Islam, imposed bans on radio stations instructing them not to air music and songs terming such act as un-Islamic. Fearing attacks from the hardline Islamists, radio stations in Mogadishu relented to this pressure and implemented the Islam command after a ten-day ultimatum.

Following the threat, programme signature tunes were replaced with random sounds of gunfire, explosions, animal and vehicle sounds. Somalia has a tradition of music and most residents greeted the ban with dismay, saying such a move has not only denied them the comfort amidst such fracas in the capital, Mogadishu, but has denied them their voice. In the past, militants in some areas have banned bras, musical ringtones, watching films and football and forced men to grow beards. Recently, al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab, the country's most powerful Islamist insurgent group outlawed the use of bells in schools to signal the start or end of lessons in class because they sounded too much like Christian church bells. The order to stop the music echoes the Taliban's strict social rules imposed on Afghans beginning in the late 1990s. Somalia has over the years proved to be a risky reporting ground for journalists. In 2009, nine journalists were killed, while a total of 22 have died since 2005. Broadcasters and journalists in the Horn of Africa nation continue to operate in an increasingly hostile environment where they are muzzled and denied any form of free expression by regimes or individuals that want them silenced. Somalia has been without a central government since 1991 when Mogadishu warlords toppled the regime of former President Mohammed Siad Barre.

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