Somali scholars demand Sharia enforcement

February 19, 2009 (MOGADISHU) — The Somali religious scholars demanded the enforcement of Islamic legislation in the country within four months, in a move that could more complicate the task of the newly elected president.

The head of the Somali Ulama Council for Correction and Reconciliation, Sheikh Bashir Ahmed Salad warned today that the parliament should revise the constitution and remove any provision against the Islamic law “Sharia”.

“Within 120 days the Somali parliament must convene and announce that the country will be ruled according to Islamic law.” He said.

The move comes six days after the nomination of the new Prime Minister Omer Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke who is charged with the implementation of the formation of a national government to achieve peace and national reconciliation in the country.

The council of moderate legal scholars is made up of former clerics of the Islamic Courts Union that chaired in the past the new president Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.

The scholars also urged the withdrawal of the African peacekeeping force from the troubled Horn of Africa country by the end of the same deadline.

The Somali President had been chosen to attract the moderate clerics and marginalize the hardliners like Al-Shebab Islamists but their move could force him to follow them and destabilize the fragile consensus reached in Djibouti, analysts say.

In Rome, the Italian Prime Minister announced the release of two nuns in their 60s who were abducted by Somali bandits in November 2008. The nuns who had lived in Kenya for years, were kidnapped near border and taken into Somalia.

Some news reports s allege that a ransom of one million dollars had been paid. But the Italian foreign ministry denied paying a ransom.

(ST)