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AI INDEX: AFR 32/004/2000 31
March 2000
News Service:062/00
AI INDEX: AFR
32/04/00
31 March 2000
Kenya: Human rights defenders arrested
for acting in front of primary school children
Kenyan authorities now seem to believe that
acting is a crime: eleven human rights activists were arrested
yesterday for perfoming theatre to a group of children while
conducting a civic education program with the Ogiek community.
''This is yet another example of harassment
of human rights defenders by the authorities in Kenya,'' said
Amnesty International.
The 11 activists included three members of
the Kenya Human Rights Commission -- a leading human rights
organization in Kenya -- and eight members of the 5 Cs theatre
group attached to the civic mobilization office of the Citizens
Coalition for Constitutional Change. They were arrested yesterday,
30 March, in Sotiki primary school, Tinet, Rift Valley province
and charged with holding an illegal meeting. They were hurriedly
taken to court, denied bail and remanded until 13 April.
In May 1999 the government gazetted Tinet
forest, where the Ogiek -- an indigenous people -- have resided
for hundreds of years. Authorities ordered the community to leave
on the grounds that the forest is protected.This order has been
legally challenged by the Ogieks as a violation of their
constitutional rights. In the past a number of Kenya's protected
forests have been sold illegally or handed over to developers.
Attacks continue on human rights defenders
attempting to engage in civic education programs in rural areas. A
legal amendment that should allow cultural or educational meetings
to go ahead without prior police notification is apparently being
flouted by police.
This is not the first incident of human
rights activists being arrested. In February a similar meeting
organized by the Center for Governance and Development was stopped
and members of their theatre group arrested. That case is due to
come to court on 13 April 2000. In Kenya, theatre is used by a
number of groups to engage the public in discussions on
constitutional reform.
''These groups are being targetted because
they use a powerful weapon: theatre,'' Amnesty International said.
''The Kenyan government must release them immediately and ensure
that human rights defenders are not persecuted.''
ENDS.../
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/ENGAFR320042000
Since the NARC
Government began to provide free primary education, also the
school of Mariashoni in Ogiek land is revived. Trained teachers,
who themselves are Ogiek, provide modern education along the
traditional lines of Ogiek culture. The Ogiek put no pressure on
their traditional clans, but who wants to send one of his children
to school at least has here the chance to do this within an Ogiek
cultural framework.
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