Hardline muslims in the southern Somali town of Baidoa have ordered women to wear Burkhas or full body veils and businesses to close for prayers.

We are giving a three-day deadline to all women living in the region to cover their body with thick veils, Sheikh Abdiasis, a local spokesperson for the Shebab group, said at a press conference.

If they fail to comply with that order, they will be sentenced to 12 hours of imprisonment, he said, complaining that many women in Baidoa were still seen without a jalabib, the local head-to-toe Islamic garment.

The Shebab official also said that businesses should close five times a day for prayers and that owners ignoring the order would face five days in jail.

Update: Sharia Law Endorsed for Somalia

20th April 2009 See article from wire.antiwar.com Thanks to Alan

Somali parliamentarians unanimously endorsed a proposal to implement Islamic law in the Horn of Africa nation.

Lawmakers say they hope that Saturday's vote will help drain support from Islamist insurgents battling the UN-backed government. Implementation of Shariah law has been one of their key demands. The vote was done by a show of hands instead of the usual secret ballot

Information Minister Farhan Ali Mohamed says scholars and imams will be invited to review the country's constitution and suggest amendments to clauses they regard as un-Islamic. Any changes would have to be approved by two-thirds of Parliament.

Update: Sharia Law Approved by President

17th May 2009 See article from thaindian.com

Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed has signed a bill that will allow the implementation of Sharia or Islamic law in the country.

Since Somalia has now implemented the Sharia, there is no reason for the continuation of hostilities in the country, Ahmed said after signing the bill into law

An Islamic court in the Somali town of Kismayu ordered the amputation of the hand of Mohamed Omar Ishmael in front of hundreds of the inhabitants of Kismayu town.

The victim was accused of night time burglary and has stolen different kinds of items including Jewelries, a bag containing clothes, curtains and mattress.

The hacking of Ishmael’s hand took place at the freedom park in the hub of Kismayu town and hundreds of the residents of Kismayu town have gathered at the scene where the event was taking place in order to witness the action said Somaliweyn correspondent in the town of Kismayu.

This will be the second time the Islamists in the town of Kismayu have chopped off the hand of somebody accused of theft. Other atrocities have been carried out by the Islamists in the town of Kismayu including the stoning to death of Asha Duhulow, a young girl aged 13 years, who was accused of having sex with men.

The Islamic Administration in Kismayo, southern Somalia, has banned ways wedding celebrations are conducted in the town and have imposed various restrictions meant to align it with the teachings of Islam and change the way these celebrations are conducted.

Sheikh Abdirashid Ma’alin Ahmad said there will be no music or dancing by men and women in weddings that are held in the town since it involves men and women who are not allowed to mingle and is against the teachings of Islam.

Escorting of couples with a convoy of vehicles has also been banned as it creates unnecessary traffic jam in the town. We will not allow more than three cars which we will ensure that they are carrying the immediate relatives of the two couples. The Administration will not also be allow any filming of the wedding,.

Many bachelors in the town who were looking forward to get married have said that they are in favor of the restrictions as it will completely eliminate some of the expenses they would have incurred. Women in the town have received the news with dismay saying that it is too restricting and favors the men.

Sharia: Where Government knows best meets Allah knows best. The lack of separation of religion and state and the lack of meaningful checks and balances, combined with a brutal set of laws and the presumption of divine endorsement for it all set the stage for a corrupt, capricious and vicious government. And governments like that issue decrees like this.

Islamists controlling southern Somaliia have banned watching DVDs or movies on television and said raids would be conducted to catch offenders, who would then be severely punished.

Watching films is totally banned even indoors, Sheikh Mowlid Ahmed, a security forces commander in the port city of Kismayo said in a statement: People are allowed to use their home televisions only to watch news on such channels such as Al-Jazeera. Raids will be carried out on homes of people suspected of illegally watching films and if found guilty, they will face punishment.

Residents say Islamist security forces in the town recently started inspecting mobile phones to prevent them from being used for watching movies.

The punishment normally meted out on offenders is flogging.

Somalia's al Shabaab insurgents in a Mogadishu stronghold sentenced four teenagers to each have a hand and a leg amputated as punishment for robbery.

It would be the first such amputation carried out by the Islamist rebels, who follow strict sharia law in the parts of south Somalia they control.

Al Shabaab has carried out executions, floggings and single-limb amputations before, mainly in south Kismayu port.

Today, the Islamic court sentences these four men who carried out robberies to have their opposite hand and leg amputated, said Sheikh Abdul Haq, judge of a sharia court in the Somali capital: They robbed mobile phones and people's belongings.

International rights group Amnesty International condemned the sentence, saying the men had no lawyer and were not allowed to appeal: We are appealing to al Shabaab not to carry out these cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments, said Tawanda Hondora, Africa deputy director of the group: These sentences were ordered by a sham al Shabaab court with no due process.

Update: Postponed

24th June 2009. See article from thescotsman.scotsman.com

An Islamic court in Somalia that sentenced four men to have a hand and a leg cut off postponed the punishment yesterday, saying the sweltering weather could cause them to bleed to death.

Update: Inhumanity Confirmed

27th June 2009. See article from news.bbc.co.uk, thanks to Alan

Inhuman Islamists in Somalia have carried out double amputations on four men for stealing phones and guns.

They have each had a hand and foot cut off after being convicted by a Sharia court in the capital earlier this week.

More then 300 people, mainly women and children, watched as masked men cut off their limbs with machetes.

The four men reportedly admitted to the robberies, but were not represented by a lawyer and were not allowed to appeal against their sentence.

Al Shabaab militants banned women in areas under their control in Somalia to wear a bra calling it as Un-Islamic, witnesses told Mareeg Online.

Witnesses reported that al Shabaab young fighters were stopping women in Mogadishu to tell them not to wear bra or they would face punishment.

The group started in Marka town in southern Somalia operations of removing silver and gold teeth from the people in the town.

Sheik Ali Mohamed Hussein, al Shabaab governor of Banadir region ordered women in Mogadishu take strong Hijab and also ordered business people to close their businesses at the time of prayers.

Al Shabaab officials in Mogadishu ordered four teenagers to each have a hand and a foot cut off as punishments for robbery in June this year. Two of the teenagers have died from their wounds later in Mogadishu.

The new administration of southern seaport town of Kismayo  has publicly punished three boys they said that they have committed crimes which are taboo in Somalia.

Each one of the boys has received lashes of whips on his back in front of the hundred of the inhabitants of Kismayo, at the national park venue which situated in the heart of the town and will serve under sentence for some months said the judge who passed out the chastisement of the boys speaking to Somaliweyn radio.

The officer added that the boys have been jointly watching pornography films in their cell phones.

Comment: Reality Porn

29th September 2009. From Alan

Hope somebody's filmed it. It would go down a storm on the gay BDSM porn market!

Somalia's hardline Islamist group, al-Shabab, has publicly cut off hands and feet of three suspected robbers in the southern port city of Kismayo.

Witnesses said hooded al-Shabab fighters used machetes to cut off the limbs of the screaming men on Friday.

The militants amputated one hand and one foot of two of the men. They cut off the third man's foot, after realizing one of his hands was disabled.

On Wednesday, members of al-Shabab in Mogadishu cut off the right hands of two men accused of theft and whipped another accused of rape.

Somalia's hardline Islamist group al-Shabaab has publicly whipped women for wearing bras which, they say, violate Islam by constituting a deception.

Residents in north Mogadishu said gunmen had rounded up any young woman seen with a firm bust and had them publicly whipped by masked men if they were found to be wearing bras.

A resident, Halima, said her daughters had been whipped on Thursday. They first introduced a hard fabric which stands stiffly on women's chests. They now say breasts should be firm naturally, or just flat.

Three masked members of a militant Islamist group in Somalia last week shot and killed a Somali Christian who declined to wear a veil as prescribed by Muslim custom, according to a Christian source in Somalia.

Members of the Suna Waljameca group killed Amina Muse Ali in her home in Galkayo, in Somalia's autonomous Puntland region, said the source.

Ali had told Christian leaders that she had received several threats from members of Suna Waljameca for not wearing a veil, symbolic of adherence to Islam. She had said members of the group had long monitored her movements because they suspected she was a Christian.

The source said Ali had called him on Oct. 4 saying, My life is in danger. I am warned of dire consequences if I continue to live without putting on the veil. I need prayers from the fellowship.

I was shocked beyond words when I received the news that she had been shot dead, the source in Somalia told Compass by telephone.

Somalia's hardline al Shabaab insurgents closed three grassroots women's organisations in the rebel-held town of Balad Hawa to stop women from going to work, a rebel leader said.

The group wants to impose Islamic law on areas it controls.

We have taken this step after we recognised that women need to stay in their homes and take care of their children ... Islam does not allow women to go to offices, Maalim Daaud Mohmed, the chairman of Balad Hawa, told Reuters by telephone.

The organisations closed by al Shabaab are the Halgan Businesswomen's Organisation, the Sed Huro Human Rights Organisation and Farhan Woman for Peace, he said.

Al Shabaab has also banned movies, dancing at wedding ceremonies and playing or watching football in the areas under its control.

Somali militants of Al-shabaab have given 40 lashes to each of three young Somali men after being found guilty of watching pornography on their mobile phones. A fourth man who was accused of listening to music on his mobile also received ten lashes in a public place.

Sheik Mohamed Abu Jafar, the head of preaching department of Al-shabaab's administration in the region told reporters that the men were found of guilty of being involved in anti-Islamic behaviour: Islam doesn't allow watching films or listening to music so we are warning people in the region to desist from such bad habits and whoever is caught doing this bad thing will be dealt with in accordance with the Islamic law, the militant leader added.

The linked Islamist rebels Al-shabaab have ordered Somali women in the border town of Dhobley close to Kenya to wear veils or face punishment, the top rebel commander in the town declared.

During a press conference Al shabab's security chief in the town Sheik Da'ud Hassan Ali said that all women in Dhobley and surrounding villages are told to wear veils and cover all their bodies otherwise they will be punished for neglecting the Islamic orders.

According to the holly Quran Allah had obligated Muslim women in all over the world to have veils, that is a religious article and any woman who doesn't obey will be dealt with in accordance with Islamic sharia law the Islamist official told reporters.

Al-shabaab also banned cigarettes and Kat {the green narcotic leafs grown in the neighbouring Kenya} to be used in the city.

Religious police from Somalia's al-Qaeda-inspired al-Shabab group arrested and jailed dozens of men in the southern city of Kismayo for shaving their beards, officials said.

The clean-shaven men, mostly students in their twenties, were picked up during a raid on Thursday evening for violating a decree made by the Shabab administration in December ordering all men to grow a beard.

Our units in charge of enforcing good religious practice arrested dozens of residents for shaving their beards, which is banned by the regional Islamic state, local police commander Sheikh Abu Hureyra Abdurahman told reporters: They will remain in jail for three days as a punishment for violating Islamic culture, they will be released after that.