Somali comedian who dared mock militants is killed

MOGADISHU, Soma­lia (AP) — On one of his recent radio shows, a pop­u­lar Somali come­dian ridiculed com­man­ders of a ruth­less Islamist insur­gent group that is noto­ri­ous for forcibly recruit­ing boys into its ranks and mak­ing them fight.

"Hey young boys, you can't move back from the enemy shelling … instead just stay there and fight," the come­dian said, tak­ing the role of an al-Shabab com­man­der speak­ing by phone to his youth­ful troops from an ocean­side spot, far from the front lines.

Such rib­bing may have cost come­dian Abdi Jey­lani Malaq his life. On Tues­day, the 43-year-old Malaq was shot dead near his home in Somalia's cap­i­tal, Mogadishu, by two young men sus­pected of belong­ing to al-Shabab, a group that pledges fealty to al-Qaida.

The tar­geted killing sparked calls for inves­ti­ga­tions into his death.

Many in Soma­lia will miss Malaq's abil­ity to make them laugh as they try to over­come some 20 years of con­flict. Mogadishu is enjoy­ing a resur­gence in the arts and sports after mil­i­tants were pushed out of the cap­i­tal in August 2011.

"He brought smiles to our faces when all … was dark and gloomy. He was a genius come­dian," said Mohamed Deq Abdi, a Mogadishu resident.

Dozens of Somali jour­nal­ists gath­ered around Malaq's grave on Thursday.

"This is a heart­break­ing and painful," Abdi Muridi Dhere, one of Malaq's radio col­leagues, said through his tears at Malaq's grave.

Malaq's death is the lat­est in a string of what appear to be tar­geted killings of media work­ers in Soma­lia, where jour­nal­ists must watch their backs for attacks from mil­i­tants and crim­i­nals and fight through judi­cial inac­tion and even out­right hos­til­ity from the gov­ern­ment. Seven jour­nal­ists have been killed in Soma­lia this year in what appear to be tar­geted killings.

The human rights group Amnesty Inter­na­tional demanded that Somali author­i­ties and the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity take action to re-establish the rule of law in Soma­lia fol­low­ing the killing of the comedian.

"Amnesty Inter­na­tional is shocked not only by the con­tin­u­ing pat­tern of tar­geted attacks against media, but also at the inac­tion of the Somali author­i­ties to pro­tect them and to inves­ti­gate these attacks seri­ously," said Béné­dicte Gode­ri­aux, Soma­lia researcher at Amnesty Inter­na­tional. "Not a sin­gle per­son has been brought to jus­tice for the killings of jour­nal­ists in Soma­lia this year, nor in pre­vi­ous years."

Soma­lia has been with­out a fully func­tion­ing gov­ern­ment since 1991. The country's lead­ers on Wednes­day endorsed a new pro­vi­sional con­sti­tu­tion that many here hope will advance human rights protections.

The top U.N. rep­re­sen­ta­tive to Soma­lia, Augus­tine Mahiga, said the new con­sti­tu­tion guar­an­tees the right to free expres­sion. He lamented the lack of inves­ti­ga­tions into media deaths.

"Almost every month we mourn a vic­tim in the Somali media world. This is sim­ply unac­cept­able," Mahiga said. He called on Somali author­i­ties to inves­ti­gate this lat­est attack and bring the per­pe­tra­tors to justice.

Posted by Adam Fox on Aug 2 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.