Call for Investigation into Murder of Khadar Osman Dhabar in Somaliland Gaboye is the collective name in Somaliland for different occupational minority groups (Musa Dariyo, Tumal, Madiban and Yibir) who number some tens of thousands of people and suffer severe discrimination in this nomadic pastoralist-based society. They are also found in Somalia. They experience exclusion on account of their occupations as hairdressers, metal-workers and blacksmiths, leather-workers and shoemakers, herbalists and ritual specialists - services they traditionally perform for the "noble" Somali pastoralist clans. They are customarily not permitted to inter-marry with the pastoralist clans and thus have no clan protection in the form of vengeance or compensation for murder or other crimes. They equally have little or no protection in the state system of administration of justice, which is controlled by clan members, and in practice have little or no access to education or other economic and social rights. Although attitudes to minorities are improving, with two seats reserved for minorities in parliament, and several Somaliland human rights organizations working with minority associations to defend their rights, the minorities benefit little from the human rights guarantees in the Somaliland Constitution and laws. Cases of arbitrary detention, kidnapping, rape, torture and killing of Gaboye with impunity are still reported in Somaliland as well as Somalia. The self-declared Republic of Somaliland which is not internationally recognized, was established in 1991 after the overthrow of the Siad Barre government of Somalia. The north-western regions broke away to form Somaliland within the borders of the former British Somaliland Protectorate. |