A Somali correspondent was allegedly beaten by court security guards last Wednesday in Puntland, the semi-autonomous region of Somalia, according to a 25 February statement by the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ).

Ahmed Ibrahim Nor from Mogadishu-based Radio Simba was recording proceedings in the high court of Bosaso, capital of Puntland, when he was allegedly attacked by the court’s chief security officer and other guards, NUSOJ reported. Nor and other journalists were reportedly told to stop recording, but were attacked even after they had turned off their equipment.

“IPI condemns the attack on Ahmed Ibrahim Nor,” said IPI Director David Dadge. “The Puntland authorities must take action against anyone who attacks a journalist. In doing so, they will be ensuring that no one is above the law. If security guards are found to have been involved in an assault on a journalist, they should be prosecuted. Attacks on journalists should never be tolerated.”

This is the second courtroom attack on a journalist in Puntland in a year. Last July, Aweys Sheikh Nur, a reporter for the Netherlands-based broadcaster, Horseed Media, was allegedly attacked by five guards at a Bosaso courtroom, who beat the journalist with the butts of their AK-47 rifles.  Nur was beaten for having taken photographs despite an order not to do so, which was reportedly given while the journalist was outside the courtroom.  The judge and other guards failed to intervene during the beating, and Nur subsequently checked himself into a local hospital for treatment.

“The problem in Puntland is that the armed forces have absolute protection,” NUSOJ Secretary General Omar Faruk Osman told IPI by phone. “They do whatever they want, and no one talks to them,” he added, citing as an example an attack on a senior Radio Galkayo reporter that occurred in December, when a well-known Puntland police officer allegedly fired shots at Hassan Mohamed Jama as he arrived at the local airport to pick up a friend.

Jama managed to escape unharmed. The police officer has not faced any disciplinary proceedings for his actions.

Several Puntland journalists were attacked, arrested, jailed or suspended last year under criminal defamation and other laws, as a result of their critical reporting. In November 2009, Voice of America (VOA) reporter Mohammed Yasin Isak was shot in the shoulder in Galkayo while exiting a Puntland police checkpoint, IPI reported at the time.

Elsewhere in Somalia, kidnapped radio correspondent Ali Yusuf Adan, who was detained on 21 February by Al Shabab militia soldiers, continues to be held incommunicado.