RSS FeedKenyan court gives reprieve in the passport case
Nairobi court grants woman time for DNA test
Lips and law
Woman’s lips trapped her in Kenya
More on the passport case
Woman hopes DNA unlocks Kenya trap
Justice still denied
Ottawa urged to rescue Kenya detainee
Toronto woman marooned in Kenya seeks court injunction to restore passport
Incredible
Canadian citizen? Be afraid.
Ottawa denies woman in Kenya is Canadian citizen
We wrote about Ms. Haji stuck in Kenya since May 17. Kenyan authorities alleged she wasn’t Ms. Haji at all. Saying she was someone else using Ms. Haji’s Canadian passport, they put her in jail.
Released on bail, she called her family in Toronto. She also produced “all her other photo ID, plus credit and bank cards as well as a Humber River Regional Hospital user card.”
Her MP Joe Volpe vouched for her. Her ex-husband, her son, her neighbours vouched for her too.
But last week, the Canadian government said she was not Ms. Haji. According to the Toronto Star, the woman’s demand to have her fingerprints verified has so far been ignored.
Despite media attention, growing discontent in the Toronto’s Somali community, and at least an appearance that the woman has a strong case, the government has not explained its decision.
If the government were to reject plausible claims of Canadian citizenship made abroad without giving reasons, what would be the value of s. 6(1) of the Charter for all of us?
(post sponsored by advicescene.com)
Another Black Canadian stuck abroad
The Toronto Star reports Suaad Mohamud Haji, a woman from Toronto, cannot leave Kenya where she was visiting her sick mother. Kenyan officials allege she does not look like her Canadian passport photo. The photo is more than four years old. Her son, ex-husband, and a neighbour, all in Toronto, spoke with her on the phone and recognized her voice.
Ms. Haji was detained on May 17 when she tried to board her flight back home. She is out on bail now with the next court hearing due on July 21. According to Ms. Haji, she tried to get Canadian consular officials’ help: ”I phone them three times again today and nobody calls me back.” Foreign Affairs in Ottawa said that they are “working with Kenyan authorities to verify the identity of the individual.”
What exactly they are doing and why it has taken almost six weeks, the Foreign Affairs spokesman did not say, according to the Star.
I don’t know what to say to Ms. Haji, stuck in Kenya.
Happy Canada Day?
(post sponsored by advicescene.com)
Mau Mau to sue the British Government
First Posted on Commercial Law International on June 24, 2009.
Concentration Camps
By Charles Wanguhu
The above move by the Kenyan freedom fighters to sue the British government has elicited some very interesting responses from some readers of the times online paper:
This is all about money and bashing the UK. Africa does not want to take responsibility for its current problems
Also if this happened in the 50’s so why have they waited till now?
Lawyers and Money again: A poisonous mix. Why after so long drag up these horrors. The Mau Mau allegedly used to drink the blood of the white farmers they killed. The British allegedly tortured Mau Mau. What good can come of this knowledge now? Time to put these things back in the box of history
While the above sentiments may be of a few it may be worth placing their arguments in a context. Firstly during the emergency in Kenya loads of kikuyu men were rounded up and accused of being Mau Mau based on accusations by guards who were collaboratoring with the british. We can therefore not claim that all those held in prison camps tortured and killed were indeed Mau Mau fighters.
Secondly what is more at stake is the recognition by the UK government that it was official colonial policy to run concentration camps and that it was sanctioned at the top.
In the article :
Professor Anderson states that is doubtful the lawsuit in its current form — targeting the state rather than those surviving individuals who allegedly carried out the abuse — will succeed.
“There can be no doubt that torture was used by British Forces . . . but the question remains ‘who is responsible?’,” he said.
Whoever this notion is flawed in that when a criminal offence occurs it is not the role of the victim to seek evidence against the offender and then bring in criminal charges against them. When a state decides to open up institutions of incarceration it is the states responsibility to ensure that the inmates are treated in a humane way and not subjected to torture. In this instance the British colonial state failed in their duty and they should therefore be brought to account for their inaction when it was clear what is happening. The Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins is an account of the atrocities carried out on the Kikuyu population in Kenya and is worth a read for any individual prior to defending the british actions.
The Mau Mau atrocities cannot be denied and were definitely atrocious. It is however pretentious to claim that they were on a similar scale as the colonial state with their better equipped and organised forces. In addition the fact that they used Machetes and not guns is akin to declaring that the British killings were undertaken in a humane way.
The question is should it be placed in history and forgotten about? Well while seeming to take a leaf from its predecessors the Kenyan Government extra judicially killed up to 400 Kikuyu young men accusing them of being Mungiki (a group not too dissimilar to the Mau Mau if not claiming their inspiration from the Mau Mau) should we forget about them as well.
While it is in the interest of majority of British people to be forward looking, the victims of atrocities still seek justice. History appears to be relative as the World Cup win in 1966 is considered fresh enough to be brought up at every opportunity but atrocities committed six years earlier than the win are too far to be worth remembering.
The issue is not so much monetary compensation but recognition that it was official British Gvt policy to carry out such atrocities and that indeed the victims of these actions were in some instances innocent people who happened to be members of the wrong ethnic community at the time.
