Qaran party leaders arrested

Dr M. Gabose (Chair)	Mr M. Hashi (Vice-chair)	Mr J. Aidid (2nd Vice-chair)

Hargeysa, 29 July, 2007 (SL Times) - The leaders of Qaran Party, Dr M. Gabose (Chair), Mr M. Hashi (Vice-chair) and Mr J. Aidid (2nd Vice-chair) were arrested by the Somaliland government early this morning around 8 am. They are accused of engaging in unauthorized political activities because they have established a political party. News of the pending arrest of Qaran leaders has been circulating in the country in the last few days, but when we asked Somaliland’s police commissioner he denied that there were such plans and accused the media of fabricating news, which only shows that he was either lying or didn’t know what is going on. Stay tuned.

Preparations by Somaliland government to shutdown the non-registered and newly-formed political party ‘Qaran’ gained momentum last week ( 16/07/07) when the ministry of interior issued a stern public warning to Qaran party leaders to stop ‘holding public meetings, rallies and all political activities, or face serious criminal court charges’.

SL Times was told by sources inside the police department that the government issued on Thursday daytime a warrant for the arrest of the main ‘Qaran’ party leaders, Dr M. Gabose (Chair), Mr M. Hashi (Vice-chair) and Mr J. Aidid (2 nd Vice-chair), and that the police have been instructed to be on standby to arrest the Qaran party leaders and their party activists.

On Thursday night, SL Times spoke to Somaliland’s Chief Police Commissioner, Mr M. Saqadi, and he strongly rejected the claim that the government had issued orders for Qaran party leader’s arrest. Mr Saqadi added, “this is news to me. I don’t know where you, media people, get these lies from?”.

Qaran party officials who spoke to SL Times on Thursday night could not confirm that an arrest warrant had been issued for their party leaders, and said, “we only heard rumors but we don’t have evidence yet.”

The press statement, issued by the Minister of Interior, Mr Abdillahi Ismail, last week, was the first time that the government had threatened Qaran party. The statement underlined that the government was losing patience and that, ‘it will no longer tolerate those few individuals who are bent on fuelling unrest and mayhem in the country, and if they continue to hold these illegal activities, they would face the law.”

A day after the minister’s statement, Qaran party officials held a press conference in response to the minister in which they said, “We will exercise our constitutional rights, whether the ministry of interior objects or not. It is not the job of the ministry of interior to interpret constitutional issues without prior legal judgment and verdict from the Constitutional Court, which in this case, has not issued a ruling regarding the legal status of ‘Qaran’ as a political organization; and since no court of law has made any legal judgments, for or against our party, we will continue to operate as a political organization”.

Source: Somaliland Times