At its 12th Session in Geneva, the UN Human Rights Council adopted in consensus the resolution, which was co-sponsored by Nigeria on behalf of the African Group and Norway.

The resolution says in part: (the) “Human Rights Council decides to renew the mandate of the Independent Expert on the situation of Human Rights in Somalia for a period of one year, with a view to maximizing the provision and flow of technical assistance to Somalia in the field of human rights in order to support Transitional Federal Government and Regional Authorities to ensure respect of Human Rights and strengthen Human Rights regime in its work to complete the outstanding task of the transitional mandate, and requests the Independent Expert to submit a report also on the status of the implementation of the technical cooperation inside Somalia to the Council at its 13th and 15th sessions on the human rights situation in Somalia”.

The UN body expressed its “deep concern on repeated attacks against journalists, civil society activists, and humanitarian workers…”

NUSOJ reiterates its call, which has for a long time been pushed also by the International Federation of Journalists, that the international community should set up an independent international inquiry into the killing of journalists in Somalia.

“Freedom of the press and the peoples’ right to know have been encroached upon and violated. Journalists have been murdered in cold blood, intimidated, threatened with death and forced to leave their work and sometimes their country, resulting into repression of the right to free expression,” said Omar Faruk Osman, right, NUSOJ Secretary General.

NUSOJ praises the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia (TFG) for having accepted and backed the push for the renewal of the mandate. It also commends the consensus with which the matter was handled at the Council’s meeting.

“This is a sure show of solidarity with the suffering people in Somalia. But we must now move ahead by committing ourselves into action. The UN Rights Council must now step up efforts aimed at monitoring the situation on the ground,” says Omar.

“Journalists and their media houses have been exposing violations of human rights, revealing the hard plight of the people but then they were singled out and have been paying a higher price since. Impunity is stoking up the heinous crimes,” Omar added.

“It is our conviction that the absence of the Expert in Somalia could have aggravated the situation with escalating culture of impunity, which is deeply rooted and which undermines the work of journalists and the media, and the people of Somalia in general,” Omar added.
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National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ) is a national union representing Somali journalists to promote and protect freedom of the press and the interests and rights of journalists. It is a member of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), International Freedom of Expression exchange (IFEX), Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) and Eastern Africa Journalists Association (EAJA). NUSOJ is partner with Reporters without Borders (RWB).