Wednesday, November 22, 2006
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MOGADISHU, Somalia (AFP) - Religious police Tuesday raided cinema halls in a southern Somalia town and arrested and flogged more than 100 people for watching banned films, officials and witnesses said. Heavily armed Islamic fighters stormed four halls in Merka, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) south of the capital, and arrested the civilians who were watching an Indian movie.
They were marched to a nearby police station, where each was given five lashes, warned, then released.
"We raided four cinema halls and arrested more than 100 people who were watching films. They were flogged, five each, and then released," Nuriye Ali Farah, an Islamic commander in Merka, said.
Witnesses said that the Islamists surrounded the packed halls before storming in and switching of equipment.
"I was about to enter one of the cinema halls when heavily armed militias surrounded the area. Fortunately I survived, but others were taken to a police station," said Merka resident Hassan Nurow.
A ban on movie-watching is one of many indications that Somalia's powerful Islamist movement, which is now at odds with the weak government, is intent on imposing a fundamentalist version of Koranic law in its territory.
The Islamists, who seized Mogadishu in June and now control most of southern and central Somalia, have enacted Sharia in varying degrees but have banned live music and shuttered cinema halls and photo shops in most areas.
They have also presided over the public executions of convicted murderers as well as numerous floggings, mainly for drug offenses, and they hassle women who they accuse of dressing indecently.
Elements of the movement are accused of links with Al Qaeda and their rise has fueled fears of a takeover similar to that of the Taliban in Afghanistan who harbored Osama Bin Laden and his terrorist network.
The Islamists deny those charges, saying that imposition of Sharia is one of the ways of restoring land and order in the lawless nation, which has lacked an effective government since dictator Mohamed Siad Barre was toppled in 1991.
Source: AFP, Nov 22, 2006