A woman currently imprisoned in Somalia for participating in peaceful protests has detailed the torture she endured at the hands of her guards. Sadia Moalim Ali, a 27-year-old rickshaw driver, spoke exclusively from prison, recounting how she was stripped naked by two male guards in a CCTV-monitored room, kicked, beaten with a baton, and left in a small cell without food for two days.
Allegations of Torture
Ali stated: “I was tortured. I was forced to lie face down on the ground, and water was poured on me. I was kicked by guards with boots on. They stood over me and beat me with a baton. I was taken into solitary confinement and kept there for two days. I was deprived of food and basic necessities while I was locked in that cell. I wasn’t allowed to leave to go to the toilet.” Torture, defined as any act intentionally inflicting severe pain or suffering, is prohibited under international law and the UN Convention against Torture.
Background and Arrest
Ali, a nursing graduate who works as a rickshaw driver, was arrested on 12 April for her anti-government activism. She used Facebook and TikTok to criticise the federal government, speaking out against alleged corruption, nepotism, forced evictions, youth unemployment, taxation, and high fuel prices. On 14 April, she was transferred to Mogadishu central prison, where she remains. She claims she has not been formally charged and was denied access to a lawyer. While in police detention, she was forced to sign a document she did not understand and then taken to court. According to Amnesty International, the police have court permission to hold her for 90 days pending investigation.
In an interview aired on Shabelle Media on 20 April, Ali stated she was being held without due legal process and appealed for her freedom. She says it was because of this interview that she was tortured. “Before when I spoke to the media, I was punished the same day … Truly a lot of pain was inflicted on me.”
Conditions of Detention
The room where she was kept is known as cellula della morte (cell of death), a name dating from Italian rule, which ended in 1941. Former prisoners say it is reserved for punishing inmates and those facing execution. The floor is reportedly doused in engine oil and salt, covered in faeces, and the cell measures about two square metres with extreme heat and an overwhelming stench that has caused vomiting. Ali, the main breadwinner for her extended family including her 11-month-old daughter, now shares another cell with 38 other women. “It is a very difficult life. No human being deserves to be put in here. It is a place with no ventilation. Even a healthy person gets sick. It is very noisy and very crowded.” She struggles to sleep, has kidney problems, and numbness in her hand and foot, and just wants to go home. She says she will end her activism.
Calls for Release
Human rights organisations, former government officials, and a Somali MP have called Ali’s detention unlawful and demanded her immediate release. Abdirahman Abdishakur, leader of an opposition party, posted on X that her detention is “a national disgrace and a damning indictment of President Hassan Sheikh’s administration. Her only ‘offence’ was speaking out against corruption and nepotism within government institutions. That is not a crime; it is a fundamental civic right. Mr President, failing to tolerate the voice of a single young woman is not a sign of strength, it is a clear display of insecurity.”
Systemic Crackdown
Since 2022, Somali authorities have been accused of systematically escalating human rights crackdowns, using arbitrary arrests, detention, harassment, threats, and intimidation to silence journalists, activists, and dissenting voices. The Somali government was approached for comment but did not respond.
Dalmar Dhayow of the Coalition of Somali Human Rights Defenders noted that women in prison routinely face human rights violations, including sexual assault or violence used as a tool to force false confessions, humiliate, and harass them. “We know a lot of cases of women being shackled while they are detained, with their legs and hands bound.”
