http://www.mareeg.com/public-rally-against-un-monitoring-group-on-somalia-and-eritrea/
Public Rally against UN Monitoring Group on Somalia and Eritrea
BY WARKA · MARCH 26, 2016
Mogadishu, Saturday March 26, 2016 – Thousands of concerned Somali citizens staged a public rally against the conduct of the United Nations’ Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group (SEMG) and demanded the Federal Government of Somalia to take serious measures on the threat posed by SEMG to Somali people and public institutions.
The rally was organized by prominent leaders from the civil society, including business community, academia, professional associations, university students, traditional leaders, women and youth groups and religious leaders in Somalia.
The peaceful demonstration at DaljirkaDahsoon in Mogadishu sought to highlight the violations of the SEMG on both public and private individuals in Somalia, which dedicated its resources to defame individuals to the extent of alleging innocent citizens as suicide bombers in one of its reports.
“Such outlandish allegations and mischaracterization of public officials remain the modus operandi of SEMG leaderships both past and present”, Muhidin Hassan Ahmed, a traditional elder said.
Despite claimsfor monitoring the UN’s arms embargo on Somalia, the SEMG has focused consistently on subverting the progress of the Somali people by mischaracterizing and distorting the facts on the ground in Somalia.
“It’s a high time for our government to draw a line and confront the dangers posed by the SEMG to the country and Somali citizens” said Mr. Daahir Hassan, a prominent member of the business community who co-organized the rally against SEMG.
The SEMG’s reports continue to discredit innocent Somalis without justifiable grounds, and at times using the narrative of terrorism to maintain the status quo as that clearly promotes anarchy and perception of chaos across the country. Such poor judgements is a destructive nature to the peacebuilding process in Somalia, and undermines the efforts of the Somali government and the international community to combat terrorism.
The protestors have called on the Somali President, the cabinet and the parliament to strongly demand from the UN Security Council to immediately dismiss members of the SEMG whose integrity is highly questioned.
Received on Sat Mar 26 2016 - 07:03:40 EDT