From The Cape Times
Militants ban school bells – they ‘sound too Christian’
April 16, 2010 Edition 1
Reuters
MOGADISHU: Somalia’s al-Shabaab militants had ordered schools in Jowhar town to stop using bells to signal the end of classes because they sounded like those of Christian churches, teachers said yesterday.
Al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab is Somalia’s most powerful insurgent group and controls large parts of the south and the capital, Mogadishu. It is battling the western-backed government for control of the country.
Teachers and a school headmaster in Shabaab-controlled Jowhar town, about 90km north of Mogadishu, said an al-Shabaab member had ordered schools to silence their bells because the sound was too similar to those in Christian churches.
“We were called by Sheikh Farah, the head of al-Shabaab’s education, and he told us we can’t use bell sounds from now on,” a teacher in Jowhar said. “He told us any school heard using bell sounds after now will be brought to Islamic justice.”
A local headmaster confirmed the report and added that al-Shabaab had informed his school that it would begin explaining to students the significance of Islamic Jihad.
Al-Shabaab runs administrations in the areas it controls using a harsh version of sharia (Muslim law), cutting off hands of thieves, making sure women wear veils and banning what it calls social vices, like music and TV sports.
On Wednesday Islamist militants ordered music off the air, labelling it un-Islamic, in a hardline edict reminiscent of the Taliban.
Stations immediately complied with the order, fearful that disc jockeys would face the harsh punishment militants mete out here: amputations and stonings.
The edict is the latest unpopular order from the Islamists, who also have banned musical ringtones, movies and bras.
More than a dozen radio stations complied with the order by the militant group Hizbul Islam, the National Union of Somali Journalists said.
“Journalists working in these stations have in the past witnessed broad daylight assassination of their colleagues and have now been signalled that they would follow the same fate if they do not obey these oppressive orders,” said Omar Faruk Osman, the union’s secretary-general.
Somalia has a tradition of music, and most residents greeted the ban with dismay. Rock, rap and love songs from the US, Europe and Africa could be heard on Somali stations before the ban.