Residents told 'pray five times a day or be beheaded'

Residents of a southern Somalia town who do not pray five times a day will be beheaded, an Islamic courts official said today, adding the edict will be implemented in three days time.

Public places – like shops and tea houses – in Bulo Burto town, about 120 miles north-west of the capital, Mogadishu, should be closed during prayer time and no one should be on the streets, said Sheik Hussein Barre Rage, the chairman of the town’s Islamic court.

Those who do not follow this edict after three days have elapsed, “will definitely be beheaded according to Islamic law,” Rage said.

“As Muslims we should practice Islam fully, not in part, and that is what our religion enjoins us to do.”

He said that the courts were announcing the edict over loudspeakers throughout the town.

The decision of the Bulo Burto court was not binding on courts in other towns.