Madashu (The NFCR) strongly condemns not only the illegal detention of the Chair of the Human Rights Center (HRC), therapy His Excellency Gulaid Ahmed Jama, cheap but also the degrading and punitive conditions under which he has been held for several days until now by the government of Somaliland.

This is not the first time that a Somaliland government has blatantly and arrogantly violated the inalienable rights of Somaliland citizens. However, drug and especially for this current government, such unconstitutional transgressions have become the norm, not the exception. Before HE Gulaid, tens of other citizens underwent the same or even more oppressive and extrajudicial mistreatments.

The only crime HE Gulaid and most other citizens before him had committed was exercising their constitutional and universal right to express freely their opinions on the state of the nation in general or on specific issues thereof in particular. We may also be reminded that, for the same reason, both the Haatuf and Hubaal newspapers, to this date, remain closed for more than a year or so and that, additionally, the government has been typically waging a constant war of attrition on the nation’s Free Press.

It is obvious that this current government has—for some reason or another; intentionally or absurdly—been oblivious to the tenets of Free Expression of Opinion—whether individually or collectively or institutionally—or on the right of Public Peaceful Assembly or Association, all of which are enshrined in both our nation’s Constitution as well as in the Geneva Convention of Universal Human Rights.

Above all, these creeds have always been and continue to be integral and cherished components of Somalilanders’ core values and traditions.

For this government to persist denying the citizens their inalienable privileges is neither called for, nor viable, nor acceptable. It is national treachery, no less. Perhaps the day of accountability is not that far off.

In meantime, the NFCR calls for the immediate restoration of HE Gulaid’s and similarly detained citizens’ freedoms as well as the lifting of the unjustifiable bans imposed on Haatuf and Hubaal Newspapers. In the two month left of its mandate, we would urge the Silanyo regime to desist from undertaking similarly and habitually   illegal actions and policies.

Ahmed Ibrahim H. Hassan

Secretary General.

Madasha (NFCR)

Hargeisa/ Somaliland

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