Al-Qarn

Al-Qarn (Arabic: جريدة القرن — “The Horn”) is Djibouti’s state-run Arabic-language newspaper, published twice a week and serving as the primary print outlet disseminating official information and state narratives to the country’s Arabic-speaking population. According to the newspaper’s own institutional history, Al-Qarn was founded on 7 May 1997 on the personal initiative of Ismaïl Omar Guelleh, then head of the presidential cabinet under President Hassan Gouled Aptidon and not yet president himself. The paper’s stated founding mission was “to convey the pulse of the street and to strengthen Arab-Islamic cultural identity,” establishing itself as Djibouti’s first Arabic-language print platform within the state media architecture.

Media assets

Publishing: Al-Qarn

Ownership and governance

Al-Qarn is wholly state-owned and published by the Ministère de la Communication, chargé des Postes et des Télécommunications (MCPT), with the Ministry of Information providing the institutional and financial framework for its operation. There is no independent governance board, no transparent appointment process and no statutory provision insulating the newsroom from political direction. The paper’s online edition is produced and maintained by the Agence Nationale des Systèmes d’Information de l’État (ANSIE), the state IT agency attached to the Presidency, reinforcing its institutional embedding within the state apparatus.

The current Director of the newspaper is Yassine Bouh Abdallah, who has held the post continuously since June 2011, succeeding Mu’min Hassan Barreh (Editor-in-Chief 1999–2011). Earlier editorial leaders identified in the paper’s own institutional history include Shoaib Ajal Al-Saghir and Aisa Khaireh. The Minister of Communication throughout this period has been Radwan Abdillahi Bahdon, in office since the May 2021 cabinet and reconducted into the post-election government following Guelleh’s 10 April 2026 re-election. The historically close institutional connection between Al-Qarn and the office of the President (the paper having been founded by Guelleh personally before he assumed the presidency) distinguishes its position within the Djiboutian state-media ecosystem.

Source of funding and budget

Al-Qarn is entirely funded by the state, with no known commercial revenue streams. Operating costs, including staffing, printing, and digital infrastructure, are covered through allocations from the Ministry of Communication’s general media budget line; the Ministry’s Direction de la Communication et des Médias coordinates these allocations across state press outlets. Financial transparency is limited: the government does not publicly disclose the newspaper’s annual budget or expenditures, and there is no independent financial audit mechanism.

Editorial independence

Al-Qarn functions as a state mouthpiece. Its editorial line is closely aligned with government policies and messaging, and it routinely promotes official positions, presidential activities, and government achievements without featuring dissenting opinions or coverage critical of state institutions. There are no legal safeguards or independent mechanisms in place to ensure editorial independence at the newspaper. Djibouti’s Loi n°2/AN/92/2émL of 15 September 1992 on the freedom of communication remains the operative legal framework, and the Commission Nationale de la Communication, created in 2017 and chaired by Ali Mohamed Dimbio, is the operational regulator.

The 2026 presidential election cycle placed Al-Qarn squarely within the state-coordinated electoral information environment. Following the November 2025 constitutional amendment that lifted the 75-year age limit and enabled President Guelleh to seek a sixth consecutive term, the CNC convened state press chiefs on 12 March 2026 to set rules for what the regulator described as “neutral, impartial and pluralistic” coverage. In practice, Al-Qarn‘s editorial output before and after the 10 April vote, readily observable on the paper’s website, was overwhelmingly favourable to the incumbent: opinion pieces such as “Djibouti renews its commitment: the victory of President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh… a popular allegiance to the path of construction and development” (16 April 2026), continuous coverage of foreign congratulations addressed to Guelleh, and near-absent coverage of CDU challenger Mohamed Farah Samatar. Guelleh was officially re-elected with 97.81% of the vote (later confirmed at 97.01% by the Constitutional Council).

The paper is integrated within Djibouti’s state-media ecosystem: its website explicitly identifies RTD, La Nation and ADI as institutional “partners” (شركاء), reflecting the structural coherence of the Djiboutian state-information apparatus across language boundaries.

AI and digital policy

Al-Qarn maintains an active digital edition at alqarn.dj, hosted and developed by the state agency ANSIE. The newspaper has not published an AI policy, content-provenance commitment (e.g. C2PA), or formal disclosure framework for AI-generated content. There is no public statement on AI use in editorial workflows, on automated translation between Arabic and the country’s other official languages, or on synthetic-media disclosure.

April 2026