US accused of Muslim torture
2007-08-30 18:06
Nairobi - Kenyan Muslims marched on police headquarters in Nairobi on Thursday in protest against what they called the illegal detention and torture of fellow Muslims in an
anti-terrorist drive urged on by the United States.
The protest involving a few dozen Kenyans followed months of
simmering tensions between the east African nation's Muslim
community and authorities they accuse of persecuting and arresting them on US government orders.
"We don't expect this in our country. Just how much power do
the Americans have over the Kenyan government?" asked Al-Amin
Kimathi, chairperson of Kenya's Muslim Human Rights Forum.
American and Kenyan authorities said they could not
immediately comment. Human Rights groups accuse Kenya of
involvement in a clandestine US practice of detainee transfer.
Kenyan police arrested scores of people on the Somali border
in January and February after allied Ethiopian and Somali
government troops chased Islamist fighters Washington accuses of
having links to al-Qaeda out of Mogadishu.
'So-called terrorists'
Human rights groups say Kenyan authorities put dozens of
terror suspects from Kenya on secret rendition flights to
Ethiopia for interrogation by US officials. Local activists said none had been prosecuted in any court.
"We know from a released prisoner that it is Americans doing
the aggressive interrogating, and the Kenyan government is
making it possible for them," Kimathi said.
Protesters demanded at police headquarters to know the
whereabouts of two brothers who have gone missing.
They said Kenyan police took the younger brother to Somalia,
then Ethiopia, in January without charge or explanation. He was
able to contact relatives once to tell of his torture, the
activists say.
Police seized his older brother last week outside a Nairobi
mosque, according to relatives who were told nothing further and
fear he faces the same fate as his younger brother.
Family members of the two brothers joined Thursday's protest
and delivered a letter to police.
"The crack-down of so-called terrorists ... is a blanket
design and a veiled, skilful and state-orchestrated machination
aimed at intimidating, harassing and persecuting members of the
Muslim community," the letter said.