MOGADISHU — Somali rickshaw driver and activist Sadia Moalim Ali was arrested and detained at a police station in Mogadishu on April 12 and transferred to the city's central prison two days later. According to Amnesty International, the police have been granted court permission to hold her for 90 days pending further investigation, and she has not been formally charged.

Ali, 27, a nursing graduate who works as a rickshaw driver, had used Facebook and TikTok to criticize the federal government over alleged corruption, nepotism, forced evictions, youth unemployment, taxation, and high fuel prices. She has been denied access to a lawyer appointed for her, and while in police detention was pressed into signing a document she did not understand before being taken to court.

In an interview aired on Shabelle Media on April 20, Ali said she was being held without due legal process and appealed for her freedom. She said two male guards stripped her naked in a room monitored by CCTV, forced her to lie face down on the ground and poured water on her, kicked her while wearing boots, and stood over her beating her with a baton. The room is known as cellula della morte, Italian for cell of death.

Ali said she was taken into solitary confinement and held there for two days, deprived of food and basic necessities and not allowed to leave to use the toilet. She said she struggled to sleep, had kidney problems, and experienced numbness in her hand and foot, and that she wanted to return home to her family and end her activism. She is the main breadwinner for her extended family, including her 11-month-old daughter, and now shares a cell with 38 other women.

Torture is prohibited under international law and by the UN Convention against Torture in all circumstances. "We know a lot of cases of women being shackled while they are detained, with their legs and hands bound," said Dalmar Dhayow.

"Her only 'offence' was speaking out against corruption and nepotism within government institutions. That is not a crime; it is a fundamental civic right. Mr President, failing to tolerate the voice of a single young woman is not a sign of strength, it is a clear display of insecurity," said Abdirahman Abdishakur, leader of an opposition party.