WUNRN
SOMALIA: 13-YEAR OLD GIRL STONED TO
DEATH - UPDATED INFORMATION
_____________________________________________________________________
BBC - 4 November 2008
A Young
Woman Recently Stoned to Death in Somalia First Pleaded for Her Life, a Witness
has told the BBC.
"Don't
kill me, don't kill me," she said, according to the man who wanted to
remain anonymous. A few minutes later, more than 50 men threw stones.
Human
rights group Amnesty International says the victim was a 13-year-old girl who
had been raped.
Initial
reports had said she was a 23-year-old woman who had confessed to adultery
before a Sharia court.
Numerous
eye-witnesses say she was forced into a hole, buried up to her neck then pelted
with stones until she died in front of more than 1,000 people last week.
Meanwhile,
Islamists in the capital, Mogadishu have carried out a public flogging.
Mogadishu is nominally under the
control of government forces and their Ethiopian allies, who face frequent
attacks by Islamist and nationalist insurgents.
The BBC's
Mohammed Olad Hassan in the city says the flogging was a show of strength.
He says two
men accused of helping to kill a man and torture his mother, who they accused
of theft, were each given 39 lashes in the north-eastern suburb of Suqa-hola.
The man who
actually killed the alleged thief was released, after agreeing to pay his
family 100 camels in compensation.
Before the
flogging, hundreds of Islamist fighters performed a military parade, our
reporter says.
Death
threats
Cameras were
banned from the stoning in Kismayo, but print and radio journalists who were
allowed to attend estimated that the woman, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, was 23 years
old.
|
People
were saying this was not good for Sharia law, this was not good for human
rights, this was not good for anything |
However, Amnesty said it had learned
she was 13, and that her father had said she was raped by three men.
When the
family tried to report the rape, the girl was accused of adultery and detained,
Amnesty said.
Convicting a
girl of 13 for adultery would be illegal under Islamic law.
A human
rights activist in the town told the BBC on condition of anonymity that he had
received death threats from the Islamic militia, who accuse him of spreading
false information about the incident.
He denies
having anything to with Amnesty's report.
'Crying'
Court
authorities have said the woman came to them admitting her guilt.
She was asked several times to
review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the
deserved punishment to apply, they said.
But a
witness who spoke to the BBC's Today programme said she had been crying and had
to be forced into a hole before the stoning, reported to have taken place in a
football stadium.
"More
than 1,000 people arrived there," he said.
"After
two hours, the Islamic administration in Kismayo brought the lady to the place
and when she came out she said: 'What do you want from me?'"
"They
said: 'We will do what Allah has instructed us'. She said: 'I'm not going, I'm
not going. Don't kill me, don't kill me.'
"A few
minutes later more than 50 men tried to stone her."
'Checked
by nurses'
The witness
said people crowding round to see the execution said it was "awful".
"People
were saying this was not good for Sharia law, this was not good for human
rights, this was not good for anything."
But no-one
tried to stop the Islamist officials, who were armed, the witness said. He said
one boy was shot in the confusion.
According to
Amnesty International, nurses were sent to check during the stoning whether the
victim was still alive. They removed her from the ground and declared that she
was, before she was replaced so the stoning could continue.
The port of
Kismayo was seized in August by a coalition of forces loyal to rebel leader
Hassan Turki, and al-Shabab, the country's main radical Islamist insurgent
organisation.
Mr Turki is
on the US list of "financers of terrorism".
It was the
first reported execution by stoning in the southern port city since Islamist
insurgents captured it.
The BBC had
a reporter in the area, but he was shot dead in Kismayo in June.
_____________________________________________________________________
Additional References:
_____________________________________________________________________
WUNRN
Via Women Living Under Muslim Laws -
WLUML
29/10/2008:
Somali Islamists have stoned to death a woman accused of adultery, witnesses
said, the first such public killing by the militants for about two years.
(Independent / Reuters)
The 23-year-old woman was placed in a hole up to her neck for the execution
late yesterday in front of hundreds of people in a square in the southern port
of Kismayu, which the Islamist insurgents captured in August.
Stones were hurled at her head and she was pulled out three times to see if she
was dead, witnesses said. When a relative and others surged forward, guards
opened fire, killing a child.
"A woman in green veil and black mask was brought in a car as we waited to watch the merciless act of stoning," one local resident, Abdullahi Aden, told Reuters.
"We were told she submitted herself to be punished, yet we could see her screaming as she was forcefully bound, legs and hands. A relative of hers ran towards her, but the Islamists opened fire and killed a child."
The European Union's presidency condemned the stoning.
"The EU ... condemns a particularly vile execution, which the Islamist insurgents who took control of the city deliberately publicised," it said in a statement.
The Islamists last carried out public executions when they ruled Mogadishu and most of south Somalia for half of 2006. Allied Ethiopian and Somali government forces toppled them at the end of that year, but they have waged an Iraq-style guerrilla campaign since then, gradually taking territory back.
As when they ruled Mogadishu in 2006, the Islamists now controlling the Kismayu area are again providing much-needed security, but also imposing fundamentalist practices such as banning forms of entertainment seen as anti-Islamic.
Relatives of the woman executed in Kismayu, whom they named as Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, were furious.
"The stoning was totally irreligious and illogical," said her sister, who asked not to be named. "Islam does not execute a woman for adultery unless four witnesses and the man with whom she committed sex are brought forward publicly."
Islamist leaders at the execution said the woman had broken Islamic law. They promised to punish the guard who had shot the child in the melee around the execution.
"We apologise for killing the child. And we promise we shall bring the one who opened fire before the courts and deal with him accordingly," one unnamed Islamist leader told the crowd.
28 October 2008
The Independent / Reuters
____________________________________________________________
http://stop-stoning.org/node/412
10/29/2008
The Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women! (SKSW) strongly condemns the stoning to death of Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow, a 23 year old Somali woman who was publically tortured and murdered Monday in the local square in Kismayu, Somalia.
Accused of adultery, Asha Ibrahim Dhuhulow was buried up to her neck in front of hundreds of people while stones were hurled at her head. She was dragged out of the hole three times to see if she was dead.
Somali Islamist insurgents captured the southern port of Kismayu in August of this year. Witnesses to the stoning said the militants, known as al-Shabaab, accused the woman of adultery and extracted a confession. Although all standard interpretations of sharia, (or collections of Muslim laws,) dictate that adultery must be proven by four eye witnesses in a court of law, the Somali Concern Group reported that the killing was extra-judicial, and that the woman did not receive a trial. Stoning is not mentioned anywhere in the Quran and is considered by many Muslim scholars to be un-Islamic.
Members of al-Shabaab apparently publicized the execution, killing the woman in front of hundreds of people at the town square. When a relative and others pushed forward to rescue the victim, guards opened fire, killing a child. Islamist leaders have reportedly apologized for killing the child, but offered no such repentance for the stoning of Dhuhulow.
Stoning is a grave and serious violation of International Human Rights Law. Stoning breeches the International Convention of Civil and Political Rights (1966). Somalia acceded to the convention in 1990.
Article 6 of the ICCPR states that “in countries which have not abolished the death penalty, sentence of death may be imposed only for the most serious crimes”, of which adultery is not.
Article 7 of the ICCPR states that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". This last injunction is reinforced in the 1985 Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) to which Somalia acceded in 1990.
Although the killing was carried out by non-state insurgents, Article 2 of the CAT states that “each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.”
We urge the state of Somalia to ensure a prompt and impartial investigation into this grave case. Members of al-Shabaab as well as every individual who took part in the stoning must be brought to justice, and the Somali state should take due diligence in taking every possible measure in order to prevent any such violation of women’s human rights from reoccurring.
Furthermore, the Global Campaign to Stop Killing and Stoning Women! urges all militias, insurgents, independent armies and other non-state actors in Somalia to respect the human rights of civilians in their communities and unequivocally condemn the practice of stoning.
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