;)
Thursday
Nov062008
13-Year-Old Somali Girl Stoned to Death
Thursday, November 6, 2008 at 2:54AM 
This is the story of a 13-year-old Somali girl named Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow. She was raped by three men. She reported the rape, even naming the perpetrators. Instead of receiving at least a sympathetic hearing she was accused of adultery and sentenced to death......by stoning.
Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was stoned to death on October 27, 2008 by 50 men in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Chisimaio (Kismayo), Somalia. She died pleading for her life, buried up to her neck in a hole in the ground. She was shown no mercy; not by the 50 men who stoned her to death nor the 1000+ people who gathered to witness the execution.
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This is a story about things that should never have happened. It reminds all of us that in some parts of the world justice is a foreign concept. Brutality rules supreme and those that hold power can and will make life and death decisions with impunity, regardless of the truth and without investigating the facts.
Both Amnesty International and UNICEF have issued statements strongly condemning the stoning death of Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow - a victim of rape.
"This is a tragic and deplorable incident," said Christian Balslev-Olesen, UNICEF Representative for Somalia. "A child was victimized twice, first by the perpetrators of the rape and then by those responsible for administering justice."
“Authorities and institutions of civil society have a role to play in supporting and protecting the rights of every child,” Balslev-Olesen said, noting that this killing reflects the great effort that must be undertaken to protect the rights of Somali girls and women.
There was some confusion over Aisha's age. Initial reports claimed that she was 23 years old, based solely on her physical appearance. Her actual age, 13, was confirmed to Amnesty International by other sources including her father.
“This was not justice, nor was it an execution. This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo,” said David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia Campaigner.
“This killing is yet another human rights abuse committed by the combatants to the conflict in Somalia, and again demonstrates the importance of international action to investigate and document such abuses, through an International Commission of Inquiry.”
According to reports Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow was walking on the road, traveling to see her grandmother in the capital Mogadishu, when she was attacked and raped by three men. She attempted to report the rape to the al-Shabab militia who control Kismayo. It was this act that inexplicably resulted in her being accused of adultery and detained. None of men she accused of rape were arrested.
In their defense court authorities said the woman came to them admitting her guilt. She was asked several times to review her confession but she stressed that she wanted Sharia law and the deserved punishment to apply, they said.
Eyewitnesses said Aisha was taken to a football stadium to be stoned. She was crying. She had to be forced into the hole that had been prepared for her. She was buried up to her neck.
She asked them "What do you want from me?" They said: "We will do what Allah has instructed us". She said: "I'm not going, I'm not going. Don't kill me, don't kill me."
That was when 50 men began to stone her. There were more than 1000 people on hand to witness it. According to Amnesty International, nurses were sent to check during the stoning whether the victim was still alive. They removed her from the hole and reported back that she was still alive. Aisha was then placed back in the hole and the stoning resumed until she was finally dead.
Somalia is among the world's most violent and impoverished countries. The nation of some 8 million people has not had a functioning government since warlords overthrew a dictator in 1991 then turned on each other. A quarter of Somali children die before age 5; nearly every public institution has collapsed. Fighting is a daily occurrence, with violent deaths reported nearly every day.
Reader Comments (8)
In Pain, She Dies
A little girl. She, just thirteen,
First bloom - obliterated.
She fought those men, three rapists who
Despoiled and desecrated…
Her childhood and her innocence,
Her purity defiled.
Yet next, they chose to slander her;
They charged, “Adulterous child.”
And then they took her, trembling,
And screaming, wild with fear
Before a thousand other men,
To stone her there and jeer…
At her distress, her agony,
Stones cast with brutal fury.
Those fifty men around her ranged,
Her remoseless jury.
There was no shield for her poor face.
She, buried in the ground
Up to her neck, so helpless there.
I wonder what the sound…
She heard around her from that crowd
Of slavering, murderous brutes?
Did they taunt and torture her
With jeers and taunts and hoots?
Tell me now, explain to me
Exactly why you did it,
Why this young girl deserved that fate,
Why none of you forbid it?
Is it Allah that applauds
Vile bestiality?
Or is it men, who make the rules
Of faux morality?
My heart, it bleeds for that poor child.
And all the women there.
Thus, bound by your barbaric creed.
Will Allah hear their prayer…
For justice or integrity
From such a vicious system?
In such a world as yours, I fear
They’ll always be the victim.
So those of us who have a voice
Must raise it to the sky.
We must protest and agitate,
Help women there defy…
Religion which would castigate
One sex, and keep them bound
By laws which claim to justify
Sadism so profound.
How can a world which claims to be
So noble, moral, fine -
And where by justice we all live
And honor thus enshrine…
Stand by and watch such evil?
Where are our outraged cries?
Why is there no one come to save
One child? In pain, she dies…
Uncared for by her fellow man
Alone for her last breath.
I cry for her and grieve for us.
For we allowed her death.
Anfractuous, That is beautiful. You have a real talent.
As a mother my heart breaks and is filled with fear and terror
As a woman I cannot begin to imagine the feeling of betrayal, humiliation and injustice.
As a human I feel disgusted, angry and ashamed that 50 men, together, murdered an innocent child.
As a Christian cannot believe that a religion would condone this deplorable act.What God allows this?
These murderers are not acting according to any God.
this is horid
i am a 14 year old girl
and afraid for that girl that was murdered for tellin ghtat she was raped
noone shall do that to a poor inocent child
many men that stoned her wer out of cntrol
she did not diserve any of that
she did tnot murder or do anything to them
she shall not be put in a place were she is not supposed to be until
god is ready for her to come
god does to approve of indangerred stuff like this
thall 50 of the men should be sentenced to death
as that girl was from them
If there is anything more needed to show us that these Moslims are not able to relate to this most recent 1000 years of human development please show me. Why do we have a hundred thousand of these creeps here in Mpls? They are absolute creeps, daily reinforcing negative views towards them.
thats it now i cannot bring my self as a grown person the acts on human beings in the name
of religion, and they are expecting help from the outside world you must be joking let the somali gangsters give them moneyi dare not use the words i want to i will be put away/
marlene starr
I thought that the story of the Levite's concubine in the book of Judges was terrible enough, but this eclipses it. Is anyone going to do anything about these barbarians who would do what they like to a child and then blame her for it? What a warped idea of purity they have.
this is nothing but state sponsored terrorism against girl-child rights. why cant they apply sharia to men who involve in adultey, but never admit their guilt? each of these sharia court judges, politicians, millitia, eligious leaders and all those fanatics who are eager to witness such incidents be stoned to death by themselves. All these people do not beleive in Allah, otherwise who are these to decide to kill a small girl? so they claim to be ruling over Allah, as if they are god! religious perverts!