Hardline Islamic courts shut cinema halls and barred residents in the Somali capital from watching the World Cup, prompting scores of civilians to protest the ban in which two people were killed, court officials and residents said.

People walk in downtown Mogadishu. Hardline Islamic courts shut cinema halls and barred residents in the Somali capital from watching the World Cup, prompting scores of civilians to protest the ban in which two people were killed, court officials and residents said.[AFP]

The gunmen loyal to the Joint Islamic Courts (JIC), cut electricity, cleared cinema halls and warned residents against watching the football tournament in areas they control, forcing a violent protest late on Saturday in which two people were killed, residents said.

The JIC deputy chairman AbdulKadir Ali Omar said the Islamic tribunals would crackdown on halls that defy the order to show western films and video, including the World Cup.

"This is war against all people who show films that promote pornography, drug dealing and all forms of evil," Omar told AFP.

"We shall not even allow the showing of the World Cup because they corrupt the morals of our children whom we endeavour to teach the Islamic way of life."

Islamic courts officials said they were against some elements of World Cup, notably the advertisements for alcohol.

On Sunday, residents said Islamic gunmen were roaming in Sukahola and Huriwa neighbourhoods in northern Mogadishu to ensure that the ban was enforced.

"I had spent a lot of money on the equipment, which I intended to help me show the World Cup, but just an hour before the kick-off of the first game of the World Cup, two gunmen from the Islamists came to me and ordered me to close down my cinema," said Ali Mohamed Nuur, who owns a cinema hall.

"I thought that I was only suffering from this Islamic court order, but next morning I realized that all the cinema halls had been closed down," said Nuur added.

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