Daher Ahmed Farah, ( so, Daahir Axmed Faarax) also known as DAF, is a Djiboutian politician and writer, who was born in 1962 in
Dikhil
Dikhil ( ar, دخيل) is a town in the western Dikhil Region of Djibouti. Lying east of Lake Abbe, It is situated about southwest of Djibouti City and north of the border with Ethiopia. It serves as the administrative centre of the Dikhil Re ...
.
Biography
Training
In 1983 Farah was an Inter-African admission to the annual entry competition at the
Special Military School of Saint-Cyr and studied management at
Reims and
Limoges. Farah served in the Djibouti army from 1983 to 1991. In 1991, he began working at the government newspaper The Nation, briefly becoming the editor in 1992.
Political activities
In 1994, he participated in the formation of the Democratic Renewal Party (PRD) with Mohamed Djama Elabe and Suleiman Farah Lodon and became its president in July 1997. He was jailed in October 1997 for management of an illegal political party, in August 1999 for publishing false news, in June 2001 for concealment of public documents, and in August 2003 for defamation.
He then left
Djibouti
Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...
and fled to
Brussels
Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
where he heads the "
Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development
The Movement for Democratic Renewal and Development (french: Mouvement pour le Renouveau Démocratique et le Développement), ( ar, لحركة التجديد الديموقراطي والتنمية) is a political party in Djibouti. It was origi ...
". He took Belgian nationality. In 2013, he returned to
Djibouti
Djibouti, ar, جيبوتي ', french: link=no, Djibouti, so, Jabuuti officially the Republic of Djibouti, is a country in the Horn of Africa, bordered by Somalia to the south, Ethiopia to the southwest, Eritrea in the north, and the Red ...
under the banner of the Union for national salvation (USN - opposition) in the parliamentary elections of 22 February 2013, finally officially won by the ruling party. Not elected, he was arrested again on March 5 and sentenced to three months in prison on March 17, 2013. He was provisionally released six weeks later on 12 May, after serving six weeks in prison, however he still faced charges of “being in contact with a foreign power” and “undermining the army’s morale.”
On 26 June 2013, an appeals court found Farah guilty of "refusing to comply with a judicial order" and sentenced him to a two-month jail sentence. He surrendered to authorities on 2 July, and was immediately jailed. He was released after again serving six weeks in jail, on 14 August. In September, he traveled to
Brussels, Belgium, where he organized demonstrations. On 1 October, he returned to Djibouti and was immediately arrested and imprisoned.
References
Living people
1962 births
Djiboutian politicians
People from Dikhil Region
Djiboutian emigrants to Belgium
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