Scientists and Human Rights in Somalia Report of a Delegation (1988) / Chapter Skim
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FINDINGS
FINDINGS
Pages 15-38
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From page 15... ...
The two new cases are those of Mohamed Yusuf Weirah, an economist, and Suleiman Nuh Ali, a civil engineer. All of these thirteen scientists have been imprisoned for more than 5 years; six have been held without trial.
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267-268) : Despite constitutional provisions that accord Somali citizens the right to formal charges and a speedy trial, the criminal procedure code was modified in 1970 to exempt crimes involving national security from specific time limits and rules of procedure.
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Prisons As noted above, the delegates were denied permission to visit the prisons and to meet with imprisoned scientific colleagues. Conditions in criminal prisons, as opposed to security prisons, in Somalia are reported to be overcrowded and unsanitary, with inadequate medical facilities.
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Berger, medical doctors affiliated with the Canadian Centre for Investigation and Prevention of Torture. (See the section on torture in this report for additional information received from Dr.
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Prisoners held in Labaatan-Jirow are not known to have had any visitors in the last 5 years. FEBRUARY 2,1988, TRIAL The government of Somalia has claimed for a number of years that the six surviving parliamentarians who were arrested in 1981 would be brought to trial "in the near future." They are Ismail Ali Aboker, Omar Arteh Caleb, Osman Mohamed Ghelle, Omar Haji Mohamed, Mohamed Aden Sheikh, and Mohamed Yusuf Weirah.
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It is thought that the prisoners will be given better food and medical treatment during the coming months so that they will look presentable at the trial. Although most Somalis with whom the delegates met were reluctant to discuss the trial, diplomats and others all expressed confidence that the lawyers for the defense would present an effective defense, though they doubted that the trial would be fair because the verdict may have been decided in advance by President Siad Barre.
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From page 21... ...
The six parliamentarians, who will apparently be tried at the same time, were also listed in a separate ledger entry, which contained accusations but not actual charges. On the list of sixteen individuals to be tried are scientific colleagues Abdi Ismail Yunis, Farah Hussein Ahmed, and Suleiman Nuh Ali, whose cases and the specific charges being brought against them are described below.
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From page 22... ...
Two of these parliamentarians, Mohamed Aden Sheikh and Mohamed Yusuf Weir ah, are scientific colleagues whose cases have been undertaken by the committees. Warsama Ali Farah, who was arrested while hospitalized, died in prison on July 20, 1983.
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He is reported to be in poor health and to have asked to leave the country for medical treatment following his previous imprisonment. The Other Detainees Suleiman Nuh Ali, civil engineer The case of Suleiman Nuh Ali is the second one that came to the delegation's attention during the mission.
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There they threatened to blow up the aircraft and its passengers unless the Somali government released into exile seven secondary school students condemned to death in Hargeisa the previous month and 14 political detainees, including Suleiman Nuh Ali. The government refused to accede to these demands but agreed not to execute the seven students and to review the cases of the 14 detainees.
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Ali, at graduation, "could not wait to return home to offer his talents in the redevelopment of his country." Farah Hussein Ahmed, engineer Farah Hussein Ahmed is charged, like Mr. Ali, with "establishing an armed group" that attempted to assassinate Major General Mohamed Hashi Gani.
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THE HARGEISA GROUP All of the individuals whose cases are described in this section are alleged by the government of Somalia to have been members of an unofficial organization in the northern town of Hargeisa known as RUDM -- Ragga U Dhashay Magaaladda or "men born in the city." According to an official transcript of the trial by the Security Court of the North-West region that came to the attention of the committees, these allegations were based on the testimony of a paid NSS informant, Abdi Langare, who had previously been tried on charges of treason and fled the country prior to the trial. The transcript also relates that these men admitted to having been involved in a community self-help project to organize the local schools and the medical and administrative functions of the Hargeisa Group Hospital and that they had collected money, but said that they were not members of an organization called RUDM and had, in fact, never heard of it.
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, the individuals had also:10 held meetings to discuss local grievances against the government, including issues relating to development in the northern region. Representatives of the group are believed to have held private meetings with senior government officials to discuss these questions.
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Complaints by the defense lawyers of ill treatment and that confessions were extracted under torture were reportedly suppressed at the trial. According to the court transcript, when the lawyer for Mohamed Dagaal Hirsi, one of the accused, asked the court to allow his client to show bodily evidence of torture, the court responded that the defendant was responsible for his own body and that the lawyer was simply trying to cause problems.
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Released While the committees' terms of reference for the mission to Somalia contained the names of eleven imprisoned colleagues, its original list in 1983 contained the names of two more colleagues also arrested in 1981, Mohamed All Sulub, a medical doctor, and Ahmed Mohamed Madar, a biologist. Both were released in a general amnesty granted by President Siad Barre to many prisoners on October 21, 1986, the anniversary of the Somali revolution.
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Mohamoud Omer Hashi received a bachelor's degree from the London School of Economics in 1975, a diploma in economics from the North London Polytechnic School in 1977, and a master's degree from the London School of Oriental and African Studies in 1978. He was co-owner of a private construction company in Hargeisa at the time of his arrest, on November 19, 1981.
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Mohamoud Sheikh Hassan Tani, medical doctor Dr. Mohamoud Sheikh Hassan Tani is a medical doctor who received his training at the Faculty of Medicine at the Somali National University in Mogadishu.
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The Victims The report by Dr. Wendell Block, written on November 18, 1987, for the committees, describes evidence of torture and oppression in Somalia based on interviews and physical examinations of thirteen Somali refugees between November 1986 and October 1987.
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Unless something drastic has happened in Somalia since 1986, and I am not aware that it has, these kinds of atrocities are continuing unabated at the present, rrr It is my earnest hope that the information in this report will somehow contribute to a renewal of basic human rights in Somalia. The Somali torture victims examined by Dr.
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From page 34... ...
or "vig" (wrists tied to ankles anteriorly) positions, and one was hung upside down, beaten, and left hanging until he lost consciousness.
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Seven of the cases reported having been held in solitary confinement and this was usually associated with a sensory deprivation. It appears that little effort was made to hide the fact that the victims had been tortured.
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He exhibited over 100 1.0 cm mostly circular pigmented scars in these areas strongly suggestive of previous cigarette burns. These scars are similar to cigarette burn scars that I have observed in dozens of other cases from all over the world.
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In over ten years of examining over 200 torture victims I have never observed such dramatic signs of previous injury.
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