MOGADISHU, June 11: Hardline religious courts shut cinema halls and barred residents of the Somali capital from watching the football World Cup, prompting scores of people to protest the ban in which two people were killed, court officials and residents said on Sunday.

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

JIC deputy chairman Abdul Kadir Ali Omar said the tribunals would crack down on halls that defied 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,” Mr 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,” he added.

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

Residents said gunmen were roaming in Sukahola and Huriwa neighbourhoods to ensure that the ban was enforced.

“The Islamic courts have ordered the closure of three cinema halls,” said Sukahola resident Abdulaziz Hanad.

Last Monday, the Islamists defeated the warlords and seized control of most of Mogadishu.

But residents in other pockets of Mogadishu still under control of the warlords gathered in makeshift cinema halls and watched the tournament that was being relayed from Germany through satellite dishes.

In the remaining warlords’ stronghold of Jowhar, about 90km north of Mogadishu, residents gathered in cinema halls to watch the tournament, an AFP correspondent said.

In the seat of the impotent and fractured Somali government in Baidoa, about 250km northwest of the capital, residents were not allowed to watch the 10pm World Cup match because of a curfew.—AFP