Daily Life under al-Shabaab

Generally when we pray, we pray for fear of God. When al-Shabaab are in control, we pray for fear of al-Shabaab.

—Somali man who fled the Karan district of Mogadishu in October 2009.[35]

Al-Shabaab controls more territory in south/central Somalia than the TFG or any other armed group.[36] In many areas it dictates even minute details of daily life, from clothing styles to prayer observance to cell phone ring tones. The brunt of its restrictions fall on women, who face harsh punishments if they seek to exercise freedoms they once took for granted.

The nature and scale of al-Shabaab’s edicts vary by community, depending partly on the outlook of local leaders. But the method of enforcement is generally the same: intrusive surveillance and draconian punishments that include floggings, head shavings, and, in some cases, amputations and execution by stoning. Those who violate al-Shabaab’s edicts receive little, if any, due process and many punishments are meted out on the spot.

 

International Legal Standards

Interpretations of Sharia vary around the world.[37] Al-Shabaab applies a draconian interpretation which goes well beyond its traditional application in Somalia.[38] Many of the measures that al-Shabaab seeks to justify in the name of Sharia contravene regional and international human rights standards.

Human Rights Watch does not advocate for or against Sharia or any other system of religious law. Rather, we are concerned about preventing and ending human rights abuses in any country, whatever their basis or legal justification.

As an armed group that effectively controls and acts as the de facto governing body in much of Somalia, al-Shabaab is responsible for respecting fundamental human rights and holding those who abuse them to account.[39] These rights—set forth in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as a host of international human rights treaties—include the rights to life, liberty, fair trials, freedom from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, freedom of expression, religion, association and peaceful assembly, and equal treatment before the law.[40] Al-Shabaab practices such as summary executions; amputations and floggings; bans on public gatherings; prohibitions on certain forms of women’s work and movement; and arbitrary interference with privacy, family, and home; are contrary to these basic standards.[41]

Peace and Security—For a Price

Many refugees from areas controlled by al-Shabaab told Human Rights Watch they were fleeing the group’s abusive dictates. But even many critics credited the group with bringing peace and order to communities that had been plagued by crime and insecurity since the collapse of the Somali state nearly two decades earlier.

One farmer from the area around Mayonde, a village roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Kismayo, described the positive aspects of al-Shabaab’s takeover of his community in early 2009:

A human being always strives to get independence and freedom, but the Shabaab administration brought peace and sanity. As a farmer I am saying this—as someone who wishes to work my land with ease and sell the fruits and get back to my family in peace so life can continue. Before al-Shabaab, this was not possible. There were many checkpoints where we needed to pay bribes. Robbery was common and you could come home without anything.[42]

Similarly, a public transport driver and father of seven credited al-Shabaab for improving security even though he had fled because of rules he found extreme. “You can sleep with your door wide open,” he told Human Rights Watch. “As a parent you will never fear that your daughter might be confronted or harassed by any man.”[43]

Still, even Somalis who praised al-Shabaab for making their communities safer said the benefit had come at a steep cost, with violence and chaos replaced by repression and fear.

 

Climate of Fear

Somalis who oppose al-Shabaab’s mandates rarely challenge them for fear of harsh or even deadly retaliation, according to many refugees and civil society leaders.[44] Residents of the southern Somali border town of El Wak learned that lesson the hard way.

The town capitulated when al-Shabaab took control of their community in late 2008, residents told Human Rights Watch.[45] As one man summed it up, “They came and we just handed over to them. We just stayed quiet. If they tell us to follow a certain path, we follow it.... Anybody who does not follow their beliefs they call a traitor and he should be killed.”[46]

But residents said that popular discontent began building in response to al-Shabaab’s bans on activities such as chewing qat—a mild stimulant that is used throughout Somalia—and on women working in public places.[47] One day in December 2008, angry residents began pelting al-Shabaab fighters with stones. The fighters responded by shooting and beating the protesters. Witnesses said that eight demonstrators died from their wounds.[48]

Residents from many other communities described living in a state of constant fear as al-Shabaab members, their identities often hidden by masks or headscarves, patrolled streets, burst into homes, and dispatched spies seemingly everywhere. “They will even find six-year-olds to use as informers who report back that, ‘So-and-So was smoking,’ ‘So-and-So has a television in his house,’ ‘So-and-So was seen with a woman,’” an 18-year-old who left the southern port city of Kismayo in June 2009 told Human Rights Watch.[49]

One young man said he could not even tell his closest friends about his opposition to al-Shabaab “because those same friends could use that information against you.”[50]

Some Somalis were afraid to even walk near al-Shabaab members on the street. “If you look too intently at what they are doing they might harm you, and if you run away too fast they might harm you, too. You have to think very cleverly,” said an 18-year-old woman who fled the al-Shabaab-controlled neighborhood around the Livestock Market in Mogadishu in October 2009.[51]

Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, and Expression

Al-Shabaab exerts enormous control over personal lives and devotes remarkable energy to policing and penalizing conduct that it deems idle or immoral. Almost no detail is too minute to escape the group’s scrutiny. In many areas, al-Shabaab administrators have banned public gatherings, dancing at weddings, musical ringtones on cell phones, western music, and movies. They have outlawed qat chewing and cigarette smoking. They have barred men from shaving their beards and moustaches, or wearing long hair or long trousers. They have refused to allow people on the streets during prayer times.

In many areas, al-Shabaab patrols break up public gatherings, no matter how small, unless they are the organizers. Frequently, al-Shabaab justifies the dispersals on the grounds that participants are engaged in “idle” or “useless” activity, a concept that is arbitrarily applied and often includes everything from playing soccer to talking among friends. “If they find a group of people talking, they may just beat them and tell them to go and do something useful,” said one man from the border village of El Wak.[52]

One young man from Kismayo said he watched an al-Shabaab patrol throw a group of teenage boys in jail one evening for playing Scrabble:

They said this was idle activity. They took them away and jailed them overnight and shaved some of their heads with a razor blade or a broken bottle. One of them was injured from the shaving. They won’t even let people gather to listen to the BBC, or to smoke tobacco.[53]

Another apparent motive for dispersing groups is to suppress potential dissent. “Al-Shabaab believe they are on a mission from God and therefore only they have the right to rule,” a civil society leader told Human Rights Watch. “You have no right to talk about politics. You have no right to exercise your values and beliefs.”[54]

Human Rights Watch also interviewed many people who were beaten, detained, or threatened simply because al-Shabaab members objected to their appearance or the contents of their cell phones.

Rough head shavings are the common punishment for young men whose hair styles al-Shabaab militiamen deem to be western or overly long. A 19-year-old father of three, who was disabled and lost his wife in crossfire during the Ethiopian intervention in Mogadishu, described how al-Shabaab stopped him to forcibly cut his hair as he fled the capital in September 2009.

I was flogged because of my hair, which was too long. There were a number of us. They used scissors to cut our hair but they cut chunks out of it so you would look very ugly. On purpose, to humiliate us. Most of us were teenagers. Some of the others were even shaved with broken pieces of bottles.

There were numerous al-Shabaab checkpoints. They stop the car, look inside, look at how people are dressed as well as what they are carrying. If they see a tape of music they will break it there and then. On your mobile phone if they find pictures of someone who has a uniform or near a government building, they can shoot you.[55]

An 18-year-old woman from the livestock market area of Mogadishu described how an al-Shabaab gunman searched the contents of her cell phone.

If 50 percent of the information in your phone is what they call filthy, like western music, they will smash the phone to pieces. Once [in May 2009], al-Shabaab checked my phone. I had western music, Somali music, some photos. They said the good contents were greater than the filthy contents so I was just told: “Next time, no more filthy things.”[56]

In the sprawling camps for internally displaced people along the Afgooye corridor, a widower said al-Shabaab gunmen threatened to kill him in September 2009 if he didn’t stop tucking in his shirt, a custom they criticized as western.[57]

Freedom of Conscience, Religion, and Education

One of al-Shabaab’s strictest rules involves the imposition of mandatory prayer. No excuse is acceptable for appearing in public rather than going to mosque during the five daily prayer times, even for the infirm and the elderly, many refugees told Human Rights Watch. A young man from Kismayo said:

I saw a woman walking down the street at prayer time who looked as if she were about 70 years old. A boy young enough to be her grandson whipped her [for not being in the mosque].[58]

A man from the Medina neighborhood of Mogadishu said al-Shabaab jailed him for three days in Daynile, an al-Shabaab stronghold, beat him with a whip made of tire rubber, and shaved his head for not going to the mosque one Friday morning. He said he was seated by the wall of a shop:

“Why are you here?” they asked. I said it is not yet time for prayers. They said, “Stand up.” They realized my trousers were long so one of them cut them short with scissors. And they shaved my head. They used a razor blade, forcibly shaving me. I sustained some cuts on my head. Then I was imprisoned in a shipping container and whipped several times. In the middle of the night, someone came with a cold bucket of water and said, “Don’t sleep, wake up!” and threw the water on me.

The man said he was not taken to any kind of court:

A fine is what they usually impose. For not praying I had to pay 300,000 shillings [roughly US$10]. If the case is not that serious they take you to the container area and present you to the emir [local al-Shabaab commander].... It can take time. In my case it took three days before I could see him.[59]

Al-Shabaab members from late 2008 through 2009 have frequently committed violence against Sufism, the mystical strain of Islam to which Somalis traditionally adhered. Sufism includes practices such as the worship of clerics’ tombs that are considered idolatry under Wahhabism, the austere form of Islam that al-Shabaab embraces.[60] Al-Shabaab has desecrated Sufi tombs in southern communities including Kismayo. Its fighters also have raided mosques during Sufi rites, and killed Sufi clerics, government officials, and militiamen, according to media and foreign government reports.[61] Since many targets are also political or military rivals such as members of the armed Sufi group Ahlu Sunna Waljamaca, Human Rights Watch has been unable to determine to what extent religion played a role in these attacks.[62]

Al-Shabaab has also used religion as a basis for restricting the right to education. One leader warned the country’s few operating schools against using text books provided by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which it described as “un-Islamic.”[63] In March 2010, al-Shabaab reportedly banned English and science studies in schools in the southern Afmadow town; it described English as the language of western spies.[64]

Discrimination and Abuse against Women

While all Somalis living under local al-Shabaab administrations cope with onerous and repressive edicts, women bear the brunt of the group’s repression and abuse. Somali women already faced serious discrimination, but al-Shabaab’s rules have reinforced traditional and cultural prejudices while introducing an array of new ones.[65]

In one of al-Shabaab’s most far-reaching edicts, some of its leaders have ordered women to wear a particularly thick and bulky type of abaya, a traditional form of Islamic over-gown that covers everything but the face, hands, and feet.[66] Al-Shabaab has also barred women from commerce or other activities that bring them into contact with men. In most al-Shabaab-controlled areas, for example, women are no longer allowed to operate tea stands or other shops, denying them a vital source of income. In some areas, women are also not allowed to watch their sons play soccer or walk to the market with a man, even if he is a relative.

“We lived in depression and fear,” said one woman who fled the southern border town of Dhobley in July 2009. “I used to be able to walk and work freely,” she told us. But once al-Shabaab took over “I felt like I was in a jail.”[67]

 

Restrictions on Women’s Dress

In the second quarter of 2009, as al-Shabaab consolidated its hold on south/central Somalia, its local authorities began requiring women to be fully veiled in public.[68] Over the next few months, many leaders added the additional stipulation that women wear an abaya made of a particularly thick cloth and that touches the ground and hides all physical contours.

These orders were a dramatic departure for many Somali women, who traditionally cover their heads and bodies, but often with lightweight, colorful fabrics that they wrap around themselves loosely.

One former al-Shabaab fighter described how he would patrol the neighborhoods of Kismayo in August and September 2009 and punish women in lighter-weight abayas or traditional Somali clothing. First, he said, they would slash the woman’s clothes with a knife or scissors. Afterwards, he continued, “We would whip her for a while to feel the pain and then take her to the nearest emir[local al-Shabaab commander] to decide punishment.”[69]

A woman from Kismayo told Human Rights Watch that in mid-2009 an al-Shabaab patrol beat her in a market and jailed her overnight for wearing the lighter-weight abaya even though the heavier garment hurt her head and shoulder, which had been wounded by shrapnel in 1992. “They called out, ‘God is great!’ and started...hitting me with the butts of their guns,” she recalled. “I told them I could not bear the heavy clothes because of my injuries but they would not listen.”[70]

The abaya decrees have severely hampered freedom of movement for women who simply cannot afford the expensive, imported garments. Many poor women have had to share one abaya across an entire family or group of households, meaning that only one of them can leave the home at any given time. A woman farmer who in October 2009 had fled a farm near Jilib, a town 60 miles (96 kilometers) north of Kismayo, explained the dilemma:[71]

They realize that when we are in the fields we cannot [dress] like this, but when going to and from the farms we must wear [the abaya]. If they find you without one, they will beat and flog you. This happened to me two months ago. I was standing in front of my compound. When I saw them with whips and guns I rushed back inside. But a man chased me and whipped me three times. He used a stick from a marer [a berry tree]. He said, “Why are you not wearing a hijab?” I said, “I cannot afford it.” He said, “That is not possible, get into your house.” So you either have to have it or stay in your house, hungry.

In some areas, al-Shabaab militiamen have threatened men over their wives’ or daughters’ attire. In the Media neighborhood of Mogadishu, one husband was given the choice in September 2009 of being flogged or watching his wife be flogged after she rushed out of her house uncovered to grab her young son, who had wandered into the street. The woman described the ordeal:

An al-Shabaab patrol saw me. I told them, “I am running after my child and you cannot arrest me—I have another child in the house.” One of them slapped me and told me to walk. I told them, “Since I am not dressed decently, let’s pass through back roads to the station.” One of them slapped me again and said, “Walk! This is how you have decided to dress.” One of them hit me with a whip.[72]

The woman’s husband brought her an abaya at the location where she was being held in a shipping containers used as a cell.

It was thrown to me and I was told to dress inside the container. My husband was then asked, “Are you going to take the 10 lashes normally prescribed for women who are supposed to wear the abaya?” He refused and they said, “Okay, then your wife will take it.” A young man gave me 10 lashes with the whip. He beat me so much that I felt heat and pain throughout my body. He was raising his hand back and counting, “One, two, three, four, five....” It felt so painful that if I had a gun I would have killed that man.[73]

One man from a small town in the southern region of Lower Shabelle said al-Shabaab authorities in August 2009 repeatedly whipped his wife and two of his four daughters, then jailed them and threatened to jail him, because he could only afford one abaya for them and it was not of the exact type women had been told to wear. “They said, ‘If your husband cannot provide for you, let him come to jail and provide for you there,’” said the driver, who instead fled while village elders arranged for his female relatives’ release.[74]

Women are also targeted with sporadically applied decrees that appear to underscore the arbitrary power and impunity of some local leaders rather than a coordinated policy. Only in some areas, for example, did al-Shabaab order women to don gloves and socks, a common addition to the abaya in conservative countries such as Saudi Arabia. Similarly, in some neighborhoods of Mogadishu, Kismayo, and Baardheere, a few women told us al-Shabaab had banned bras because they considered them a “western deception.”[75] But this did not appear to be a uniform mandate, despite widespread media coverage.[76]

Some women who were devout Muslims and already wore abayas told us they initially had welcomed the dress codes, particularly those who had been criticized for wearing the hijab by troops from neighboring Ethiopia who were bolstering the TFG. But soon, these women said, they felt as if they had been yanked from one extreme to the other.[77]

 

Ban on Commercial Activity

Somali women have traditionally engaged in a wide array of small-scale businesses such as selling tea, qat, and fruit in kiosks, small shops, and markets. But al-Shabaab administrations have ordered women to close their shops. As one resident of a southern village explained, “Al-Shabaab said this is social mixing [with men].”[78] These discriminatory bans have profoundly curtailed women’s rights to freedom of movement and to earn a living. In a country with a vast number of war widows and female-headed households, with scarce employment options, they also have left many families without crucial sources of income.

Several refugees told us that al-Shabaab enforcers did not hesitate to punish working women who were infirm, elderly, or pregnant, or who had lost all other breadwinners in the conflict.

A woman from Kismayo recounted that she was in her third term of pregnancy when al-Shabaab members whipped her in August 2009 for selling tea. They did not appear to care that al-Shabaab had previously abducted her husband and two brothers.

They said, “Your husband is supposed to be your provider.” I replied, “You have kidnapped my husband. How is he supposed to provide for me?”....They whipped me twice, even though I told them that if the child develops a problem they would be responsible. They broke all the cups and thermoses.... I fled two nights later.[79]

Some women said they were fortunate to get off with warnings. But a 22-year-old tea vendor from Kismayo said seven al-Shabaab militiamen broke her wrist and beat her unconscious while jailing her for two days in July 2009.[80]

Al-Shabaab has reserved some of its harshest treatment for women who commit what it considers the double transgression of selling tea or other goods to alleged TFG sympathizers.In the Hawlwadaq neighborhood of Mogadishu, one woman said al-Shabaab gave her 185 lashes over the course of a week in jail in December 2008 after accusing her of that “crime.” The woman said she had no other means to support her disabled husband, five children, and four war-orphaned nephews.[81]

In November 2009, al-Shabaab insurgents reportedly closed three grassroots women’s organizations in the southern border town of Balad Hawa, saying that Islam does not allow women to go to offices.[82]

Segregation from Men

In addition to barring women from working in public places, al-Shabaab has imposed more general rules that segregate males and females outside the home. A 19-year-old refugee described life in Kismayo before he left in October 2009: “You cannot even go to the market with a woman, even if she is your sister. Girls and boys can no longer share the same class at school. But most people are too scared to go to school anyway.”[83]

A 19-year-old woman from Kismayo told Human Rights Watch that an al-Shabaab patrol jailed her overnight for sitting outside her house one evening in July 2009 and chatting with a young man who was a neighbor.

They said, “You are a woman, you are not allowed to sit close to a man in public.” I said, “We have the right to associate with whom we please.” They shouted at me and threatened me all the way to the station house.[84]

When women travel, they are often required to have a male escort. A 17-year-old girl said that in August 2009, an al-Shabaab patrol pulled her from a passenger van in the town of Bulo Haji, near the Kenya border, and flogged her and several other women who were not traveling with men.

They beat me on the back with a horsewhip. It hurt so much I thought I was dying. I was begging and crying for mercy. One of them said, “This is your reward for not going with a muhrim [male escort].”[85]

Male escorts must sit in a different seat if the woman is traveling in a vehicle, however, as al-Shabaab bars men and women from sitting together. Several women told us they were warned by bus drivers that they would be flogged if they were caught sitting beside a man.

 

Amputations and Executions

Al-Shabaab’s system of justice is harshest on those it accuses of crimes that holy Islamic texts single out for specific punishments. These include theft (punishable by amputation), extra-marital sex (punishable by death or flogging), and apostasy or renunciation of Islam (punishable by death).[86]

Not all governments or non-state groups that adopt Sharia as a legal system implement these punishments, which violate international law. Stoning, flogging, amputations, and other forms of corporal punishment violate international legal prohibitions on cruel, inhuman, and degrading punishments.[87] Imposing capital punishment for such crimes as extra-marital sex in states that have yet to abolish the death penalty also violates international law.[88] Human Rights Watch opposes the death penalty in all circumstances because of its inherent cruelty and finality.

In many areas of Somalia, al-Shabaab leaders have not only embraced amputations and executions but turned them into mandatory public spectacles. In many cases, the alleged offenders receive scant or no due process.

Refugees from Mogadishu, Kismayo, and Bardheere described al-Shabaab gunmen driving around in pickup trucks and ordering them to attend the amputation of an alleged thief’s hand or foot.

“If a thief steals something, his hand is chopped. If he tries again, the other hand will be chopped. The hand chopping is rare but when it happens they announce it with a loudspeaker ... to mobilize people to come see how people are punished,” said one woman who fled Baahdeere in October 2009. “Even the children hear it.”[89]

An 18-year-old man described an amputation in Kismayo before he fled in October 2009:

Every Friday after prayers, the al-Shabaab would converge near the hospital. They would call the public and give lectures and try to recruit the youth.... That was where they called a large crowd to witness an amputation. As usual, they had announced earlier in the mosques that “There will be a person punished today.” They said the man was a bandit and would be brought to full justice. They did not say what he had stolen. The men in the open area were wearing masks. They stretched the man's hand until they pulled the joint apart and cut it off with a sword.[90]

The man said he averted his gaze when the al-Shabaab members cut off one of the man’s feet.

Refugees in Kismayo and Mogadishu also described seeing amputated hands and legs of alleged thieves or spies hanging from public areas in al-Shabaab-controlled areas, such as the doorways of a police compound or a market.

According to independent media and civil society groups, al-Shabaab has stoned to death at least three people since late 2008 for allegedly committing adultery. In one case, in November 2008, al-Shabaab drew hundreds of spectators to a soccer stadium in Kismayo to watch its enforcers stone to death an alleged female adulterer. The victim’s age has not been confirmed; some reports say she was as young as 13 while others say she was an adult.[91]

In the village of Wajid, about 250 miles (400 kilometers) northwest of Mogadishu, al-Shabaab reportedly stoned to death a divorcee in November 2009 for having an affair with an unmarried man. The man was reportedly given 100 lashes.[92] The same month, media reported that al-Shabaab stoned a man to death for adultery in the port of Merka, south of Mogadishu. Al-Shabaab announced it would execute the man’s pregnant girlfriend after she gives birth.[93]