Somalia - Universal Periodic Review - Death Penalty - October 2025
Country: Somalia
Partners: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Issues: Death Penalty
Mechanism: UN Universal Periodic Review
Report Type: Stakeholder Report
This report addresses Somalia’s compliance with its international human rights obligations with respect to the death penalty, ratification and accession to international instruments, and acceptance of international norms.
Somalia has not abolished the death penalty, implemented a moratorium on executions, or limited the death penalty to instances of intentional homicide. Somali courts continue to sentence people to death; however, official records of the number of people under sentence of death and executed by the Government of Somalia are not complete and represent a substantial undercount of those actually under sentence of death and executed.
Beyond official implementation of the death penalty, state and nonstate actors have sponsored extrajudicial killings with impunity.
Ongoing armed conflict between Somalia and the non-state actor Al-Shabaab, which holds territory in southern and central Somalia, has led to thousands of combatant and civilian deaths in the last few years alone, and the maintenance of parallel military, executive and judicial authorities in territories controlled by, respectively, the Government of Somalia and Al-Shabaab. Changes to the political and governing structures of the Government of Somalia have also caused uncertainty and continued conflict within the territory it controls. Members of the media continue to face official repression and extra-judicial violence and death throughout Somalia.
