\n<\/p>\n
A rickshaw driver in Somalia has been sentenced to three years in prison for comments she made on social media, in a case that has caught the public\u2019s attention and provoked outrage in the country.<\/p>\n
Sadia Moalim Ali, a 27-year-old nursing graduate, was originally charged with insulting government institutions and incitement to commit a crime, but convicted only of the former. Her sentence, immediately condemned as \u201cfundamentally unjust\u201d, was handed down on 25 June.<\/p>\n
She had made critical comments on Facebook and TikTok about the federal government of Somalia, speaking out about the youth unemployment and high fuel prices gripping the country, as well as against alleged corruption, nepotism and forced evictions.<\/p>\n
The sentencing of the young mother has been condemned by former high-ranking government officials, including the former president of Somalia, Sharif Sheikh Ahmed, and human rights organisations.<\/p>\n
Hassan Ali Khaire, former prime minister of Somalia, wrote on X: \u201cThe three-year prison sentence handed down today \u2026 is deeply troubling and fundamentally unjust. This politically motivated arrest and conviction \u2026 reflects a disturbing pattern of judicial overreach, political retaliation, and abuse of state authority.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a statement, the Coalition of Somali Human Rights Defenders called for her immediate release, saying: \u201cAli\u2019s conviction and harsh sentence represent a serious attack on freedom of expression and the legitimate work of human rights defenders in Somalia.\u201d<\/p>\n
It said her case reflected a broader pattern of systematic discrimination against women who advocated for social and political change. \u201cFemale human rights defenders in Somalia continue to face disproportionate risks,\u201d it said, \u201cincluding arbitrary arrest, judicial harassment, intimidation, online abuse and gender-based discrimination, aimed at excluding them from civic and political participation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Somali media reported that Mohamed Sheikh Osman, one of Ali\u2019s lawyers, rejected the ruling and said the defence would appeal.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Ali] is not satisfied with the decision of the Banaadir Regional Court,\u201d he told reporters. \u201cThe court issued a harsh ruling that could have been avoided.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ali, who is the main breadwinner for her family and has a one-year-old daughter, has been in custody since 12 April. In an interview from prison in May, she told the Guardian she had been subjected to torture. She said: \u201cI was forced to lie face down on the ground, and water was poured on me. I was kicked by guards with boots on. They stood over me and beat me with a baton.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was taken into solitary confinement and kept there for two days. I was deprived of food and basic necessities while I was locked in that cell. I wasn\u2019t allowed to leave to go to the toilet.\u201d<\/p>\n
At court, Ali said police officers had threatened her with rape.<\/p>\n
Torture \u2013 defined as any act by which severe pain or suffering, physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted \u2013 is prohibited under international law and by the UN Convention against Torture in all circumstances.<\/p>\n
Since 2022, Somali authorities have been accused of engaging in a systematic and escalating crackdown on human rights, using arbitrary arrests, detention, harassment, threats and intimidation to silence journalists, activists and other people who express dissenting views.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A rickshaw driver in Somalia has been sentenced to three years in prison for comments she made on social media, in a case that has caught the public\u2019s attention and provoked outrage in the country. Sadia Moalim Ali, a 27-year-old nursing graduate, was originally charged with insulting government institutions and incitement to commit a crime,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":50686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[14075,918,1123,558,2695,1186,12582,20402,668,637],"class_list":{"0":"post-50685","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-criticising","9":"tag-development","10":"tag-global","11":"tag-government","12":"tag-jailed","13":"tag-online","14":"tag-outrage","15":"tag-somali","16":"tag-woman","17":"tag-years"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50685"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50685\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}