Somaliland: Shuro-Net Human Rights Network
Shuro-Net is a Somaliland Human rights network comprising 38 separate organisations including women's groups, human rights defenders, youth groups etc.
The context of this information on the extraordinary behaviour of the government of Somaliland and in particular of its Assistant Minister for Justice (sic) Tallabo is of the increasingly authoritarian and extra-legal tendencies of the Hargeisa government. Many have had high hopes that this unrecognised but so far stable Somali state had embarked on an irreversible if long democratic path. However, whether because of Ethiopian tutelage or internal securocrat attitudes the last year has seen a number of worrying events like the arrest of journalists from the independent media for investigating alleged presidential corruption, the arrest of Qaran political association leaders and clan elders that supported them for 'offences' that were at best civil questions for debate, and the move away from Somaliland norms of mediation including negotiationsby traditional structures.