Speaking at an event in Hargeisa on Tuesday, Mr. Brown has questioned why Somaliland continuously detains journalists. 31 detentions took place in 2019, the British diplomat in Hargeisa said.

"Somaliland has a bad reputation for freedom of expression. If I talk to my other diplomatic colleagues who focus on Somaliland, they talk about human rights; the first thing they say is the situation for journalists is terrible,” Mr. Brown said.

"What is going on. Who is to blame,” Mr. Brown posed as he was expressing his frustration on the endless arrests against journalists in Somaliland.

The event was attended by the Somaliland’s new Minister of Information Saleban Koor.

This becomes first public reaction by a senior diplomat to speak and react on the ever deteriorating situation of the press freedom in Somaliland which claims to have broken away from the rest of Somalia.

The Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS), a trade union journalists’ freedom advocate in Somalia said in a report in early January that Somaliland topped as the worst violator of freedom of the press in the region. Almost more than half of journalists who fled into exile in 2019 have fled from Somaliland.

"The main perpetrator for the closures of media outlets is Somaliland, seconded by Puntland and Hirshabelle states,” found the SJS report.

Currently two journalists remain incarcerated in Somaliland. On January 15, 2020 Somaliland authorities in the town of Erigavo detained Abdirahman, a reporter with the privately owned broadcaster Eryal TV, according to Somali Journalists Syndicate (SJS) and the Somaliland Journalists Association.

The U.S-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) condemned the journalist’s arrest in Erigavo. He was sentenced to 21 months in prison after a sham trial without a lawyer.

- Horn Observer -