Kenya Criticized for Arrests of Somalis to Curb ‘Terrorism’

By Sarah McGregor

Human rights groups criticized the Kenyan government for detaining thousands of ethnic Somalis in a week-long security crackdown aimed at averting the threat of what it calls “terrorist activities.”

Kenya has deported at least 82 people and rounded up more than 3,000 since Operation Usalama Watch, which means “security” in Swahili, began on April 4, according to the government. A sports stadium in the capital, Nairobi, has been converted into a temporary police detention center.

Authorities say the raids were prompted by rising insecurity after gunmen shot dead six worshipers in a church near the port city of Mombasa on March 23, followed a week later by a simultaneous triple explosion that killed at least six people in Nairobi.

“There seems to be a knee-jerk reaction to scapegoat the Somali community,” Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch, said yesterday by phone from Amsterdam. “Kenya has the right to respond to these acts of violence, but what we are now having are arbitrary arrests.”

Kenya has sharpened its focus on security after Islamist militants from the Somali group al-Shabaab, which has links to al-Qaeda, stormed the Nairobi Westgate mall on a busy Saturday at lunchtime in September, killing 67 people as they lobbed grenades and sprayed bullets.

Deadliest Assault

It was the deadliest assault in a number of attacks since Kenya deployed troops in neighboring southern Somalia in October 2011 to oust al-Shabaab, which is trying to topple the government there and impose Shariah, or Islamic law. Kenya contributes soldiers to an African Union force fighting alongside Somali government troops to eliminate the militia.

“Any country that is faced with terrorism that is global in nature usually ends up taking very drastic action to secure the nation,” Adams Oloo, chairman of the University of Nairobi’s political science department, said by phone yesterday. “What we are seeing today is not a well-structured operation, maybe it’s just to be seen to do something.”

Detainees at Kasarani Stadium, which was designated as an interim police post, have been separated based on gender and age and are receiving food rations, Nairobi-based The People newspaper reported yesterday. The media and human rights groups for the first time on April 9 were given restricted access to the facility, it said.

‘Official Terror’

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights is investigating reports of violations including extortion, sexual harassment, theft and looting of homes and torture since the police sweeps started, according to an e-mailed statement.

“Combating terrorism through official terror only serves to foment further resentment, increase radicalization and fertilizes the breeding ground of future terrorists,” it said.

A police station holding suspects, which was examined by Human Rights Watch, had overcrowded cells soiled with urine and excrement, the group said today in e-mailed statement. People were kept in custody for more than the legally allowed 24 hours without charge, it said.

Interior Secretary Joseph Ole Lenku declined to comment when called by phone today.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on March 27 promised the most “extensive new investment in security” since the country’s independence from Britain in 1963, including hiring more police officers and improving surveillance methods.

Reactive Swoops

The main opposition Orange Democratic Movement party said yesterday the government failed to properly investigate the Westgate attack and called for a plan to start bringing the country’s more than 4,000 troops home from Somalia.

“We however do not believe that reactive swoops and return to slumber thereafter as we have witnessed in the last one year, including what is going on today, presents some kind of well-thought-out and well-designed response to the security challenges we face,” acting ODM leader Peter Anyang Nyong’o said.

The government says Operation Usalama Watch targets anyone lacking legal identity documents or staying outside the “precincts of legally gazetted areas.”

The government in March reissued a directive for Somali urban-based refugees and asylum seekers to report to the United-Nations run camps in the country because of security concerns. Ole Lenku said last year that the camps are being used as bases to carry out attacks by extremists and the government has plans for the refugees to return home.

Moving Refugees

Kenya’s High Court ruled in July that forcibly moving refugees to camps is illegal, according to Human Rights Watch. Of the 550,980 refugees and asylum seekers in Kenya, 50,800, mostly Somalis, live in Nairobi, according to the UN.

As of April 8, 447 people were being held for further interrogation on their legal standing and any criminal history, while 69 others had been charged with various offenses.

“There are arbitrary arrests, discriminative and illegal detentions,” Al-Amin Kimathi, a human rights activist, said yesterday by phone from Nairobi. “The rancor is so high, and it’s not just the Somali community. The anger has spread to the Muslim community now.”

Source: Bloomberg

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.