Somalia anti-terror police under fire for oppressing journalists

By ABDULKADIR KHALIF

An elite squad of the Somali Police Force has been thrust in the eye of storm after being filmed blindfolding and tying up journalists who were covering an operation against al-Shabaab militants.

The incident in Mogadishu’s Kahda district drew ire from opposition politicians, diplomats and a press lobby, who termed the treatment “barbaric and heinous” torture.

The reporters, working private outlets, had been tracking the incident in which al-Shabaab raided the area on Tuesday night and had been interviewing locals about it when they came face to face with the Haram’ad (Cheetah) squad, a Turkish-trained counterterrorism police unit, according to a statement by the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).