What a circus? Somalia should have webcams posted all over it, so we can turn that country into a massive reality TV show. I would call it ‘Somalia FAIL’! lol –Matt
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Guns and grenades for Somali Ramadan quiz winners
10/17/2009
KISMAYO, Somalia — No luxury cruise but a ticket to jihad was the prize for the winners of a team quiz organised by Somalia’s insurgent Shebab group during the holy Muslim month of Ramadan.
“The reason the young men were rewarded with weapons is to encourage them to participate in the ongoing holy war against the enemies of Allah in Somalia,” Sheikh Abdullahi Alhaq said at a ceremony late Friday.
The radio-broadcast quiz organised by the Al-Qaeda-inspired Shebab organisation in the southern Somali city of Kismayo lasted throughout Ramadan, which ended last month.
Five neighbourhoods of the port city entered the competition, which consisted mainly of questions on science, culture and the Koran.
The winners — a team from Farjano district — were given a first prize consisting of one AK-47 assault rifle, two hand grenades, an anti-tank landmine and office supplies at a ceremony attended by hundreds of residents.
“The team in the first place gets the weapons and office equipment worth upward of 1,000 dollars,” Sheikh Abdullahi Alhaq said, sparking cheers and applause in the crowd.
“It was a wonderful event because I have never seen students being rewarded with weapons as a result of an education competition”, Mohamed Hersi, a Kismayo trader who attended the ceremony, told AFP.
The Shebab and an alliance of local Islamist factions seized control of Kismayo — one of the country’s main ports — more than a year ago and imposed a strict form of Sharia, banning sports, DVDs and Western clothes.
The quiz show’s runners-up had to settle for an AK-47 and ammunition.
Story here.
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By Mail Foreign Service16th October 2009
A hardline Islamist group in Somalia has begun publicly whipping women for wearing bras that they claim violate Islam as they are ‘deceptive’.
The insurgent group Al Shabaab has sent gunmen into the streets of Mogadishu to round up any women who appear to have a firm bust, residents claimed yesterday.
The women are then inspected to see if the firmness is natural, or if it is the result of wearing a bra.
If they are found wearing a bra, they are ordered to remove it and shake their breasts, residents said.
Somalis are also contending with hardline Islamists seeking to impose a strict form of Sharia law on the country
Al Shabaab, which seeks to impose a strict interpretation of Sharia law over all Somalia, also amputated a foot and a hand each from two young men accused of robbery earlier this month.
They have also banned movies, musical ringtones, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching soccer.
‘Al Shabaab forced us to wear their type of full veil and now they order us to shake our breasts,’ a resident, Halima, told Reuters, adding that her daughters had been whipped on Thursday.
‘They are now saying that breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.’
Officials of Al Shabaab, which Washington says is Al Qaeda’s proxy in the failed Horn of Africa state, declined to comment.
The group’s hardline interpretation of Islamic law has shocked many Somalis, who are traditionally moderate Muslims. Some residents, however, give the insurgents credit for restoring order to the regions under their control.
Al Shabaab, which means ‘youth’ in Arabic, control large swathes of south and central Somalia.
Abdullahi Hussein, a student in north Mogadishu, said his elder brother was thrown behind bars when he fought back a man who humiliated their sister by asking her to remove her bra.
‘My brother was jailed after he wrestled with a man that had beaten my sister and forced her to remove her bra. He could not stand it,’ Hussein said.
Men were not spared the’ moral cleansing’. Any man caught without a beard was been publicly whipped.
‘I was beaten and my hair was cut off with a pair of scissors in the street,’ Hussein said.
‘My trouser was also cut up to the knee. They accused me of shaving my beard but I am only 18.
‘They have arrested dozens of men and women. You just find yourself being whipped by a masked man as soon as leave your house.’
Story here.