The Morning Call
Amnesty International has accused Somalia’s government of creating teams of online monitors who troll journalists and report them to Facebook’s standard enforcers in order to disable their accounts and silence critical media voices.
The Western-backed government in Mogadishu detained 38 journalists last year, setting a national annual record, the Somali Journalists Syndicate said last month, raising concerns ahead of a parliamentary election later this year.
Indeed, the efforts by government censors were paying off, with 10 Facebook accounts belonging to journalists being shut in a single day last June, the London-based watchdog said in a new report on the state of media freedom in Somalia on Thursday.
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Israel: Authorities raid Al Jazeera after shutdown order passed
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Nigeria: Detention of investigative journalist sparks concern for press freedom
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UN Secretary-General warns of growing threats to media freedom
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Bomb attack in northern Kenya kills 5 people near the border with Somalia
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Tunisian journalist sentenced to 6 months in prison for insulting an official
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Kenya proposes treaty to ease Somalia-Ethiopia tensions