MARCH 17 2009
PART ONE
Kingdom
1. INTRODUCTION
In the lead up to, during and after the upcoming presidential and local elections, scheduled
for 2009, both the Government of Somaliland and the international community should pay
greater attention to the overall human rights situation in Somaliland and consider ways to
protect human rights.
Amnesty International delegates travelled to Hargeisa, capital of the self-declared Republic of
Somaliland, in December 2007. They collected information on human rights violations in
Somaliland, and interviewed displaced persons from southern and central Somalia. Amnesty
International has continued to monitor and document the human rights situation. This report
offers recommendations to improve the respect, protection and promotion of human rights in
Somaliland.
For more than a decade the Government of Somaliland has maintained relative stability
throughout the territory it controls. It has carried out local, parliamentary and presidential
elections, while serious violations of human rights and humanitarian law, lack of governance,
ongoing armed conflict and recurrent humanitarian crises have characterized conditions for
civilians throughout southern and central Somalia.
However, the Government of Somaliland has yet to firmly establish the respect, protection
and promotion of specific human rights, such as those ensuring freedom of expression,
including press freedom, and freedom of assembly and association. Some events taking
place in 2007 and 2008 indicated a tendency to roll back respect for human rights on
national security grounds.
Actions taken by government officials that have violated or threatened human rights in
Somaliland have included: the arbitrary arrest and detention of journalists and opposition
political leaders; unfair trials; non-transparent and unlawful conduct of National and
Regional Security Committees; and unnecessary restrictions on freedom of expression,
particularly with regard to the media. There have also been periodic reports of violations
committed against civilians by Somaliland as well as Puntland forces in armed conflict
against one another in and around Las Anod in Sool and Las Qorey in Sanaag, in eastern
Somaliland.
Several of these concerns were at least partially resolved by January 2008, including the
release of three opposition party leaders from prison; the non-enforcement of an expulsion
order against Somali journalists from Mogadishu; and a government commitment to provide
emergency and development assistance in eastern Somaliland to address the economic
disparity fueling human rights abuses in that area. Other violations, however, have
continued.
Somaliland's government diplomacy is aimed at securing international support for the
recognition it has sought since unilaterally declaring independence from Somalia in 1991
after the fall of Somalia's President, Major General Siad Barre. Since the Government of
Somaliland has demonstrated sensitivity to human rights concerns in the past, possibly based
on its quest for recognition, governments engaged in the region and international
organizations could help to ensure that human rights are respected and protected, and
perpetrators of violations are
© Amnesty International Publications 2009
Index: AFR 2. BACKGROUND
Clan elders and leaders of the northern Somali National Movement (SNM) unilaterally
declared Somaliland's independence from Somalia on 18 May 1991, after the SNM and
other armed groups toppled the government of then-President Siad Barre.
Somaliland (the former British Protectorate of Somaliland) had united with southern Somalia
(former Italian Somaliland) to form the Somali Republic in 1960. After a military coup that
overthrew the elected government in 1969, widespread human rights violations took place
against the people of Somalia, carried out by Siad Barre's Somali National Army (SNA) and
other security forces, particularly in the northwest of the country. These violations laid the
foundation for the re-separation of Somaliland along former colonial borders in May 1991,
when local leaders declared Somaliland independent, claiming the people's right to selfdetermination.
1 While Somalia descended into nearly two decades of political and criminal
violence, Somaliland established a new government in the north. The self-declared
independence of Somaliland has to date not been recognized by any government or
international body.
The first administration of Somaliland, under its first President Abdurahman Ahmed Ali Tuur,
ran from 1991-1993 and attempted to establish a power-sharing system among the northern
clans. In 1992 and from 1994 to 1996 Somaliland endured its own internal armed
conflicts, based on unresolved clan rivalries and problems with power-sharing. But beginning
in 1993, under the administration of President Mohamed Ibrahim Egal, a series of traditional
gatherings were held to build reconciliation, security, state formation, and a constitution.
Somaliland has since established an executive and judiciary, and a bicameral parliament
divided between a House of Elders, known as the Guurti, and an elected Lower House,
combining democratic and traditional means of governance.
Increased stability has encouraged the gradual return to Somaliland of upwards of 100,000
refugees who fled during the Somali civil war (1988-91) and the two subsequent conflicts in
Somaliland. However, on 29 October 2008 three suicide bomb attacks were carried out in
Hargeisa, simultaneous with an attack in Bossaso in the Somali region of Puntland. 2 In
Hargeisa more than 20 civilians were killed and more than 30 injured when three separate
cars drove into compounds housing the president's residence, UN Development Programme
offices, and the Ethiopian trade mission, with the last location suffering the worst damage
and the greatest number of casualties.3 The October attacks have been widely interpreted
both as spill-over from armed attacks by extremist opposition groups that characterize
conditions in Somalia, and reaction to Somaliland's economic and diplomatic relationship
with Ethiopia and western governments.
The current president, Dahir Riyale Kahin, assumed office when President Egal died
suddenly in 2002. President Riyale was then elected in 2003 by a slim margin in an election
regarded by international observers, including the European Union, as largely free and fair.
The next presidential elections are scheduled for late March 2009, with wide expectation
that they could be further delayed in part due to delays in the voter registration process.
Local elections are currently slated to follow the presidential election in late 2009
Amnesty International has been monitoring, reporting on and promoting human rights in
Somaliland since 1991, with an emphasis on minority rights, prisoners of conscience, and
capacity-building among emerging civil society organizations in the capital Hargeisa and
other parts of Somaliland.
In mid 2007, Amnesty International began receiving reports that space for civil society
activity in Somaliland was shrinking—due in part to inappropriate government involvement in
a dispute between members of the formerly prominent Somaliland Human Rights
Organization Network (SHURO-Net), and in part to government actions to curtail the
activities of the political association known as Qaran ("the nation"), which at that time
sought to become a fourth political party.
In the words of one human rights defender, "the government succeeded in its strategy of 'you
are either with me or against me." This puts civil society organizations in an awkward
position in which they fear that if they voice their concerns the government would close the
organizations."
The ongoing use of the National Security Committee and Regional Security Committees,
exercising extra-judicial powers, has diminished the rule of law as carried out by an already
weak, under-resourced and multi-level judicial system. It has been reported that these
committees have authorized the unlawful arrest and detention of some individuals, including
several journalists in 2007. They have also ordered the arrest of others held without trial in
incommunicado detention on national security grounds.
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