Juje Posted November 1, 2007 HornAfrik co-founder to get posthumous award for courage Ali Iman Sharmarke helped start up Somalia's first independent radio and TV station before dying in a roadside bombing attack. It was about 2:15 p.m. on Aug. 11 when the SUV Ali Iman Sharmarke was riding in inched back to the radio compound, shortly after he attended a funeral for a fellow journalist who had been gunned down that morning. It was a bumpy, slow ride back to Mr. Sharmarke's HornAfrik compound in Mogadishu, on the muddy dirt Somali road made worse by the seasonal rainfall that had fallen throughout the week. Then the roadside bomb struck. Heat and black smoke filled the vehicle. Sahal Abdulle, a colleague and close friend who was also in the SUV, called out to Mr. Sharmarke. There was no response. "And the next thing I know he's dead, and I'm going, 'No, no, he cannot be dead. He cannot be dead," Mr. Abdulle, a Reuters correspondent at the time, recalled saying. Mr. Sharmarke, 50, who lived in Ottawa before leaving for Somalia to co-found HornAfrik, the war-battered country's first independent radio and television station, will be given an award Thursday in Toronto for his courage in journalism. Canadian Journalists for Free Expression will honour Mr. Sharmarke with the Tara Singh Hayer Award, which will be presented to his son, Liban Sharmarke. The other CJFE award recipients at the 10th International Press Freedom Awards are Farida Nekzad, editor-in-chief of Afghanistan's Pajhwok News Agency, and Sahar Al-Haideri, a reporter in Iraq for several news agencies. Like Mr. Sharmarke's award, Ms. Sahar's is posthumous; she was gunned down on June 7. Mr. Sharmarke came to Canada in the 1990s and received a master's degree in public administration from Carleton University. He worked in the federal Finance Department, before returning to Somalia in 1999 to co-found HornAfrik. "He really showed courage in terms of making sure that these stories get out and people knew the real story. And he paid with his life," said Ms. Game. Mr. Abdulle echoed the sentiment last night from his Toronto home, where he is recuperating from injuries caused by the bomb. "By the organization like this giving him that award, it's making sure his voice is not silenced. It benefitted the people of Somalia greatly," he said. "He knew the risks he was taking when he left his job in Ottawa. But he was going there to give the voiceless, the little guy, a voice." Earlier that August day, when he attended the funeral of Mahad Ahmed Elmi, his Horn-Afrik colleague and a popular radio journalist and talk-show host, Mr. Sharmarke was visibly shaken, Mr. Abdulle said. That morning you could see the sadness in his eyes. He didn't even have to open his mouth," Mr. Abdulle said. In times when Mr. Abdulle felt discouraged, he said, Mr. Sharmarke would act like a "grandfather" figure, reminding him ôf the importance of their jobs. Somalia is the second-deadliest country for journalists, after Iraq, in terms of numbers killed, Ms. Game said. Eight have been killed so far this year. And each year it's increasingly more dangerous for journalists around the world, said Ms. Game, executive-director for Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. According to an International Press Institute count, 28 journalists were killed worldwide in 1997 and 50 in 1998. About a decade later, in 2006, 100 journalists were killed. Eighty-nine have been killed so far this year, the institute said. ''The most frightening thing is the impunity," she said, saying that in many cases "there's absolutely no follow-up." Mr. Abdulle's son, 11-year-old Liban, who by coincidence shares same name with Mr. Sharmarke's son, wrote an article, referring to Mr. Sharmarke as "uncle, " a term used to denote respect of an older person in Somali culture. "My uncle tried to make the world a better place, but it was that very quality that he was slain for," he wrote. Source: The Ottawa Citizen, November 01, 2007 Quote Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
