Italian colonial judges punished Somalis for disputing white testimony without evidence

Evidence

In one incident, Cossu sent Warsame Cumar Siyaad, a clerk at the office of an Italian businessman, to prison for five days. Warsame’s employer accused him of molesting and harassing a friend’s wife. The commissioner believed the businessman without making any inquiry. Warsame disputed the claim, but the accuser was not asked to produce evidence. Instead, the commissioner sentenced Warsame to prison for five days for daring to call the white man a liar. Osman, who was the interpreter for Cusso, heard him announce that the five days would teach Warsame how to behave as a “native.” — Abdi Ismail Samatar, Africa’s First Democrats, 154

Categorization

• SEED: This specific injustice — a man jailed for contradicting a settler — is a concrete anchor for an essay on how colonial legal procedure encoded racial hierarchy.