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Environmentalist
now free, charges dropped
by Alfred Omondi, Rights Features Service
(March 9,
2001) Amidst pressure from activists, the government has withdrawn
charges of "incitement" and "illegal assembly" that faced leading
African environmental activist Prof. Wangari Maathai.
Prof. Maathai,
who had been arrested
on March 7, says that she will continue with her efforts to
fight the excision of Kenya forests and will not be silenced with
intimidation.
Prof. Maathai,
of the Greenbelt Movement, was charged with "incitement" and holding
an "illegal meeting" and at a rural Kenya village and had appeared
before Kerugoya Resident Magistrate Nyaga Njagi on March 7.
The arrest
of Prof. Maathai had sparked a huge outcry from environmentalists
who demanded her release.
The withdrawal
of the charges was a victory to environmental campaigners struggling
to reverse a government bid to excise ten per cent of Kenya's
forest to ostensibly settle the landless.
Campaigners
say that the main plot is by the rich to grab the land and are
using squatter problem to access the land.
"The squatter
problem cannot be solved by stealing our forests," says Maathai.
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