Any persons or agency suffering defamation or wrongdoing from a media organization will have the right to
register a compliant and ask for compensation equal to the suffered damage.
Art. 18
Obligatory Release of information.
The media organization that was punished for a committed offense, payable fine or compensation should
broadcast the sentence. In case the media organization fails to do so, the agency will be fined an amount
equal to the exchange rate of USD 500 up to USD 1,500.
Art. 19
The State Media.
The Ministry of Information would be responsible for the state Media where the ministry would nominate
directorate for coordinating government media agencies, the privately owned media and the international
media.
a) The Ministry of Information will have News agency; the Somali news Agency – SONNA which will
have the obligation of exploring and distributing the information received. SONNA will respond to the
demands and requests of the state media agencies, private media and the international media for data
details. SONNA will have the right to quote the information released by the international media, local
media and privately owned media.
b) The state will have its own radio service, TV, newspapers, printing agency, and websites, poets,
handcrafts, theatre. Such state media agencies will have the obligations of presenting information,
programs, films, dramas in which they will compete with the privately owned media.
c) The state media will operate autonomously its media activities while respecting the existing media
ethics...
Art. 20
Media Cooperation
1) The establishment of media cooperatives between the state media agencies and the private media is
permissible under this law in order to encourage the improvement of the national media. The media in
question could include the operating media at present and the future registered Medias.
2) Any agreement concluded under section 1 of this article should be undertaken in a legal notary with the
presence of the government prosecutor attorney general and a copy of the agreement should be
registered in the regional court .The registered agreement will be kept or archived in the regional court.
3) The concluded agreement between the state media and the private media should explicitly
demonstrate the conditions of the agreement and the duration of its validity, the objectives and any
other pertinent and significant issue.
4) Any media organization emerging from a concluded agreement should respect the provisions of the
media law and other laws of the state.
Art. 21
The Journalist.
1. Any Somali graduating from the media training institutes or having equivalent qualifications or having
acquired knowledge of the media profession and have been trained with the journalist skills and gained
experience inherited from working as journalist.
2. The media profession is an open profession for every person interested in the field of journalism as is
prescribed by the state laws and international conventions.
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