Somalia: NUSOJ Meets Journalists in a Media Forum

By Staff Writer

MOGADISHU — Media owners, Managers of the radios and TV stations, Journalists and other media representatives gathered Thursday, January 5, in Mogadishu for a consultative meeting organized by the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) . The meeting was held at Sahafi Hotel and was financially supported by the Somali Youth Advocacy Organization (SYAO).

The meeting, which was the first of its kind,  addressed the current conditions of the Somali journalists, promoting their level of education by training, cooperation between media stations, launching a safety fund for Somali journalists – funds from Somali working journalists to Somali journalists – and how media stations can contribute, contract agreement between employees and employers, union membership fees and extending the union membership to all Somali journalists, the outcome of the recent union campaign for justice and the best way to put pressure on the government in order to immediately bring the killers to justice and finally how the media stations can contribute to the union action plan and activities by the year 2012.

The media officials  who attended the conference came from Kulmiye Radio, Xamar Radio, Jubba Radio, Risaala Radio, Raxanreeb Radio – a web-based radio- , Codka Nabadda Radio, Danan Radio, SIMBA Radio, Somali Chanel Television, Horn Cable Television, Royal Television, S24 Television, Somali National Television and Radio among others, in addition to the prominent journalists invited.

The gathering was aimed at unifying the vision of the Somali journalists and media fraternity. Mohamed Ibrahim, NUSOJ Secretary General, welcomed the participants in his opening remarks, thanked their acceptance for the invitations extended and their time with which they would have done much due to the heavy responsibility they held for the media followed a report on the activities carried out by the new leadership during the six (6) months they have been office.

The report, which was presented by Mr. Ibrahim,  highlighted the activities accomplished within a short time including the recent campaign launched by the union and thanked the media representatives for their active support without which, the activities would not have been completed successfully and endorsed the report with deliberations and urged the union to double their efforts in serving to the Somali journalists.

The participants in the conference praised the union for their role in unifying the Somali journalists and their recent campaign following the murder of Somali journalists late Abdisalan Hiis and recommended the union to double their efforts.

The Media executives urged NUSOJ to come up with comprehensive and transparent plan in terms of creating a safety fund account for the Somali journalists and how the money will be used and upon completion distribute to the Media representatives to agree and endorse, in which the union officials accepted and that suggestion came from the media executives present at the meeting. This fund helps the families of slain journalists, offer educational opportunities for the children of slain colleagues, help jobless journalists and for emergency cases.

It was also agreed that each media house that did not develop the employment agreement to speed up its implementation in order to safeguard the rights of the Somali journalists. Recommended the union to distribute the membership forms to the media stations in order the non-member journalists get the opportunity to become members in order to strengthen the unity of the Somali journalists and media partners.

The conference participants restated their call for justice for the murder of late Abdisalan Hiis and urged the government to speed up the investigation to bring the killer to book.