Interim Qaran Leaders Released After being Held Overnight in Police Custody

Hargeysa, 17 November, 2007 (SL Times) – The spokesman for the interim committee for the non-registered political organisation ‘Qaran’, Mr M Abdi Daud, and three other persons belonging to Qaran have been released on Tuesday by Somaliland’s police after being ‘illegally’ arrested on Monday without formal court orders or warrants in connection with Monday’s public rallies held in Berbera and Buroa, which were prematurely disrupted by the government in these two major Somaliland towns.

Before being disbanded by the police, Qaran supporters in Buroa shouted demands that the government immediately release their leaders from “unlawful imprisonment.”

The imprisoned Qaran leaders are Dr. M Gabose, the only practicing neurological specialist working in Somaliland, Eng. M Hashi, a founding-member of the SNM liberation movement, and Jamal Aideed, an SNM veteran who played a prominent role in liberating Somaliland from Siyad Barre’s regime.

The president has demanded that Qaran leaders apply for his presidential pardon to get their freedom back. While, the Qaran leaders, protest their innocents ‘in having not committed any crimes or offences against the state but simply exercised their constitutional ‘God-given’ rights in forming a political association’.

Somaliland ’s President, Dahir Rayale Kahin, has argued in a number of media interviews that the release of Qaran leaders from prison requires a procedure which cannot be overlooked, and that Qaran leaders have to submit a written request to be pardoned in order for him to pardon them. Qaran leaders have refused to submit such a request because they consider their imprisonment as illegal and submitting such a request would be interpreted as an admission of guilt.

Source: Somaliland Times