Bartamaha(Nairobi):-A leading Somali insurgent Islamist group asked citizens on the eve of the country’s 50th independence anniversary to boycott celebrations and warned of reprisals if they attended.

“We call on the Muslim people to avoid commemorating what they call the national day as it was inherited from the infidels”, Moalim Hashi Mohamed Farah, senior Hezb Al-Islam official said in Mogadishu.

“We warn the local media and journalist against attending the ceremonies. Anyone found covering the national day events will face bad consequences”, he said.

Somalia, wracked by civil war since 1991, gained independence from Italy in 1960 and merged with Somaliland, a British protectorate which proclaimed independence five days earlier on June 26.

Farah also said events such as International Tuberculosis Day should not be observed as they were un-Islamic.

“Marking and celebrating for the events like Health day and Tuberculosis day is not also mentioned in the holy Koran and so that partying for those days is totally banned in Islam,” he added.

Strict Islamic Sharia rules are being implemented in some parts of the capital Mogadishu and other regions of Somalia by the Shebab group, which has a dedicated religious police branch known as “Jaysh al-Hisbah” (Army of morality).

Units from the movement’s “social mobilisation brigades” can often be seen criss-crossing busy areas on pick-up trucks and blaring instructions through loudspeakers to join the jihad and respect a pure Islamic clothing style.

Some of the other edicts imposed on Mogadishu by Islamist insurgent groups include a ban on watching World Cup games in public, as well as bans on Western music, DVDs and video games.

Source: AFP

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