afrol News, 23 February - Somali’s radical militant group, Al-Shabaab has abducted a reporter in the country on Sunday, local newspapers have reported.

The Committee to Protect Jounalists said Ali Yussuf Adan, a reporter with the Somaliweyn Media Center, a private broadcaster, in the town of Wanlaweyn, northwest of the capital Mogadishu, is being held in a prison in the Al-Shabaab-held coastal city of Merca.

“The abduction and detention of Ali Yussuf Adan is not justified under any legal system,” said CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney. “We call on Al-Shabaab to release him immediately.”

The motive behind the abduction is still unknown, Somaliweyn Director Abukar Hassan Kabar told CPJ.

CPJ said that Mr Adan was picked up on Sunday morning, shortly after reporting Al-Shabaab’s alleged killing of a man accused of being late to a Saturday prayer mandatory under their version of Sharia law.

Al Shabaab, who professes loyalty to al-Qaeda, wants to impose a harsh version of Sharia law in the anarchic Horn of Africa nation and have carried out numerous executions.

Local and foreign press freedom activists have also blamed the group for threatening the media and assassinating a number of prominent journalists in the last three years.

With six journalists killed in relation to their work, Somalia ranked among the world's deadliest countries in 2009, surpassing hotspots like Iraq and Pakistan, according to CPJ.

CPJ said the threats had forced many media professionals to flee Somalia in recent years, leaving a void in reporting on one of the continent's longest running wars.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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