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NEWS & LETTERS, December 2008 - January 2009
Stoning in Somalia
In the Southern Somalia port city of Kismayo on Oct. 27, a crowd of up to a thousand people witnessed the stoning death of a 13-year-old girl. Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow had been raped by three men, then charged with adultery and sentenced to death by the Islamic fundamentalist militia that controls Kismayo. Called al-Shabaab, the group took power there in August.
Aisha, who had only recently returned to Kismayo from a refugee camp in Kenya, was murdered in a stadium where she was buried in sand to her neck. Witnesses reported that young Aisha fought and pleaded for her life. A special truckload of rocks had been delivered with which about 50 men pelted her. At one point she was dug up and, being pronounced still alive, reburied so the stoning could continue.
Many in the crowd objected to this cruelty, but were kept at bay by armed fundamentalist gunmen who fired on the crowd at one point, killing a young boy. The al-Shabaab militia also made death threats against locals who reported the facts about Aisha's murder to Amnesty International.
Al-Shabaab split with the fundamentalist group that previously ruled parts of Somalia, the Union of Islamic Courts, which was willing to negotiate with the Ethiopia-aligned government in Mogadishu. It includes many non-Somali fighters. In recent months they have expanded their activities even into Mogadishu, including threatening and murdering rights activists, tribal elders, international aid workers and employees of nongovernmental organizations. In some instances angry Somalis have fought back against the heavily armed group using stones.
--G.E.
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