Kampala, August 15, 2025—The Committee to Protect Journalists calls on authorities in the breakaway region of Somaliland to unconditionally release Facebook-based journalist Ahmed Mohamud Dool, who has been in detention without charge since August 5.
“Ahmed Mohamud Dool’s ongoing detention is the latest sign that Somaliland is becoming an unbearably hostile environment for the media,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo. “Authorities should release Ahmed Mohamud Dool unconditionally, and without delay.”
On August 5, Ahmed was taken into custody at the headquarters of the Criminal Investigations Department in the capital, Hargeisa, after responding to a police summons, according to the Somaliland Journalist Association (SOLJA) rights group and Abdikarim Saed Salah, a local journalist familiar with the case.
Ahmed, who reports on local news including killings, insecurity, and protests on his Facebook page, which has 98,000 followers, posted earlier that morning that he did not know why he had been summoned.
Sacad Yasin, Ahmed’s lawyer, told CPJ that police said the journalist had been detained in connection with a Facebook post. He did not provide further details, except that the post quoted comments made by a local lawyer.
On August 6, a Hargeisa court remanded Ahmed for four days, and on August 10, police were granted a further seven days to hold him in custody, pending investigation. Sacad told CPJ the police had filed an investigation report with prosecutors, but the journalist had yet to be charged.
SOLJA said Ahmed was the 20th journalist to be arrested in Somaliland in 2025, describing it as “an alarming pattern.”
CPJ contacted Information Minister Ahmed Yasin Sheikh Ali Ayaanle via messaging app and emailed the information ministry and Somaliland police, but did not receive an immediate response.
Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991 but has not been recognized internationally.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.