Somaliland Civil society held a meeting yesterday 23th February 2017 at SONSAF office, the objective of the meeting was to discuss on the issues of justice, media, human rights, droughts, elections and the establishment of Somaliland civil society committee on justice and human rights.
In particular, the meeting focused on strengthening the issues of justice, especially the need for police reform, as civil society assumed that police has mandate to reinforce rule of law.
Somaliland Civil society called the Government of Somaliland to halt all forms of extra-judicial arrests against media and freedom of expression, which deprives the right of innocence of accused person until proven guilty in a court.
Therefore, the Civil society is requesting from the Government the release of all arrested media personnel, which their arrests not in conformity with the law and currently under the police custody and calling mandated law enforcement to uphold rule of law and refrain any attempt of misuse of power.
The meeting announced the establishment of the Somaliland Civil Society committee on justice and human rights, the committee will conduct policy dialogue consultations on the issues relating the acceleration of the justice reforms.
The meeting also appealed to the House of Elders (Guurti) to respect the agreement made by the President of Somaliland, the three National Political Parties and National Electoral Commission on the establishment of the calendar of elections for the Presidential, House of Representative and Local Councils.
The Civil society also called all mandated institutions and warned them the risks on the continuation of elections postponements, which threatens the national interests of the Republic of Somaliland, and pointed that the undue elections in Somaliland have discredited the process of democratization and development in Somaliland. Finally, the Civil society appealed to the Government of Somaliland, United Nations Agencies and all international community on the acceleration of emergence responses to droughts affected populations in Somaliland.
Mustafe Sacad Dhimbil
SONSAF Chairman