Baidoa town, the capital of Southwest Administration about 240km Southwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu is surrounded by the Somali militant group Al-Shabab, a terror organization which is affiliated to Alqaeda and the only safe route for government affiliated people, journalists, NGO workers, human rights defenders, is to travel by air.

Security forces loyal to Southwest State leader Abdiaziz Laftagareen arrested Hassan Black upon arrival Baidoa airport on 17 April 2021 and kept him incommunicado for 2 weeks, before he was transferred to the Baidoa main prison, according to his family and friends, on 1 May 2021, Hassan Black, a former  regional lawmaker and a civil society activist, was sentenced to 14 months.

Baidoa court chief Judge Mohamud Abdi Yusuf announced the sentence against Hassan Moalim Yusuf to remain in prison for 14 months in a short hearing in Baidoa court, even though persecutor Mukhtar Abdulkader failed to bring a single evidence, according to colleagues and family members.

The arrest and sentence of Hassan Black follows after publishing a series of Facebook posts that criticized "the president of SWS’s failure to liberate Huddur town of Bakool region from Alshabaab”

Salah Hassan Black, the son of Hassan black published on his Facebook timeline a quote attributed to his father, which read "I would rather be free in my mind, and be locked up in a prison cell, than to be a coward and not be able to express my expression or at least what I believe in."

The Southwest  administration launched a heavy handed campaign of countering the critical voices considered as threat to Southwest State leader Abdiaziz Laftagareen through direct threats, chilling phone calls, arbitrary detentions, harassment, and other persistent abuses carried out with impunity or under reported.

In reference to the human rights defender’s comments, there are dozens of people arrested in Baidoa for only exercising their right to Freedom of Expression and are behind bars without being noticed by the International community, while the media is harassed to a level, where no one can comment any wrong doings of the administration.

Journalists oppressed, imposed self-censorship or forced to flee

Trusted sources in Baidoa informed Horn Observer that the administration imposed the journalists in Baidoa an order to publish posts that "Praise” the SWS President Abdiaziz Laftagareen, failure to do, journalists might lose the permission to access the Presidential Palace checkpoint, which is the only source of information for the media in the region.

According to interviews conducted by Horn Observer, several journalists already fled to Mogadishu and are staying with the radios or television stations they were representing in Baidoa, leading some of them to lose their jobs.

Victims Harassed

The police commander of Baidoa Col. Amin Mohamed Osman aka Amin Mad Daruur, a relative to president Laftagareen, recently public harassed and aggressively responded through media to Dr. Aweys Abdullahi, a university lecturer and former politician whose two innocent kids Abdulmudcim Aweys 9, and Amina Aweys 7, were mercilessly slain in the outskirts of Baidoa on April 8, 2021.

The desperate father accused the security departments and the police that his kids did not get justice, because the police did not carry out proper investigations about the murdered of the two young kids, whose mother died a year ago, and lived with their father.

The abusive action by the entourages of the president of SWS posed a serious threat to civil society voices, the media freedom and freedom of expression in general, which is in a complete silence because of fear.

"The current SWS administration is the worst we had in our present history, the president is completely and deliberately ignoring all the abuses committed by his entourages, the moral of the citizens died, people are hopeless and no one in the federal government or international community cares it” Said Halima Moalim, who is an aid worker, who currently visited Baidoa.

"Young people are desperate to run from the town, the nepotism, favoritism, inequality with heavy handed abuses by the entourages can cause thousands of desperate youths to join Alshabab” She added.