A Somali woman and a journalist convicted...

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SOMALIA | A year in jail
Convicted Somali woman reported being raped by police
Security forces dispersed concentrated journalists front of the courthouse. | AFP
Efe | Mogadishu
Updated Tuesday 05/02/2013 18:47 hours

A Somali woman who reported being raped by the police was today sentenced to a year in jail by a court in Mogadishu, which imposed the same penalty to a journalist whom she confessed her complaint .

The head of the court, Ahmed Adan Farah, said the court decision was based on "medical evidence" that the woman, Lul Ali Osman, "was not raped" and tarnished the honor of a state institution .

"The journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur was accused of insulting state institutions and to induce women to provide false evidence, so both have been sentenced to a year in jail, "the judge said Farah.

The journalist Abdiaziz Abdinur. | AFP
The magistrate said Osman, a mother of five children, not immediately go to jail because you are nursing a baby .

Her husband and two other people, who supposedly had the reporter convicted were exonerated of all charges.

The woman had reported the rape to the police station in Hodan district, Mogadishu neighborhood inhabited by many people displaced.

The journalist , a freelance reporter who has worked for local media-Radio and Radio Ergo-Dalsan and international media as the British newspaper Daily Telegraph, had been arrested on January 10, two days after interviewing the woman .

The general secretary of the National Union of Somali Journalists (NUSOJ), Mohamed Ibrahim, said today that the interview Abdinur "has not been published by any means", even though "Police say he is the author of a report issued by Al Jazeera " on violations in IDP camps in Mogadishu.

"Today we are very disappointed by what the court has done," said Ibrahim.

Politically motivated

Somali journalists and advocacy groups believe that human rights are hiding behind the case politically motivated.

Black Hassan from the NGO Centre for Peace and Human Rights (HRPC), went to court today and said that the ruling "is far from being fair" and is a "wrong decision" because "the woman is a victim" and the reporter did not publish the interview.

Last week, the UN Political Office for Somalia (UNPOS) expressed its "concern" over the fact that the accused had been subjected to "prolonged detention and had no lawyer until recently" .

Despite the progress made ​​last year in the political arena, with the election of a parliament, a president and a prime minister who ended the transitional Executive, Somalia is still immersed in an armed conflict .

In it, the troops of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), the Somali army, the Ethiopian armed forces and pro-government militia groups fighting the Islamist al-Shabab, the radical militia dominant since 2006.

Somalia is in a state of civil war and chaos since 1991 , when he was ousted dictator Mohamed Siad Barre, leaving the country without a government and moderately effective in the hands of radical Islamic militias, warlords and criminal gangs.


http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2013/02/0 ... 86423.html

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My apologies folks.. this news has already been posted by someone else..