Photo credit: AFP

Freedom from violence? Freedom of the press? Justice? Not for a Somali woman and journalist who were arrested for reporting rape.

After alleging in a video interview that she was raped at gunpoint by colleagues, a 19-year-old woman and the journalist who interviewed her have been detained in Mogadishu, charged with defamation. The perpetrators — who complained to the police about being defamed — remain free, while the government refuses to get involved in the judicial process.

The victim, a journalist herself working for the state-owned Kasmo Voice of Women radio station, reported being raped multiple times by two male colleagues. She has appealed to the government to take action against her rapists, but nothing has been done.

The UN, which currently backs Somalia’s government, has called for a “proper investigation” into the matter. What, exactly, that entails remains to be seen.

Email the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women (vaw@ohchr.org), demanding that the women are released and justice served!

Categories: Violence

Tags: Kasmo Voice of Women, Mogadishu, Rape, Somalia, UN, United Nations