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Kenya under fire over Kanu, Gulen abduction
By Akpo Ometan
The East African nation of Kenya has come under fire over its alleged role in the abduction and deportation of the leader of the Independent People of Biafra, IPOB, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and the nephew of the Turkish Gulen Movement leader, Selahaddin Gulen.
Both Kanu and Gulen were reportedly arrested in Kenya before being respectively deported to Nigeria and Turkey.
But human rights groups are livid, alleging that the Kenyan authorities may have in the process fallen foul of global best practices in addressing such matters.
For example, Human Rights Watch Africa has formally protested over the abducting and deporting of Gülen to Turkey at the end of May.
The younger Gulen A nephew of Fetullah Gulen, a staunch critic of the Erdogan regime, who is presently living in exile in the United States, the older Gulen is a Turkish Islamic scholar and leader of the Gülen movement: an international, faith-based civil society organization once aligned with Turkey’s government.
Like IPOB, the Gulen movement had since been outlawed as an alleged “armed terrorist group’ and was even to be accused of having masterminded the aborted coup in Turkey on 15 July 2016.
In a statement, East Africa director of HRW Africa, Otsieno Namwaya said the deportation of Selahaddin Gülen , violated Kenya’s obligations to uphold the principle of non refoulement under international and regional refugee law.
“Kenyan authorities have a responsibility for what happens within their borders, and should investigate the possibility of complicity of its officials in this flagrant disregard for due process. This is even more urgent given the negative history of alleged complicity of Kenyan authorities in previous incidents of abduction and deportation of asylum seekers, ‘ the human rights group is arguing.
Going further, they aver that under international refugee and human rights law, there is a framework that guarantees that no one should be returned to a country where they would face torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment and other irreparable harm.
The Kenyan authorities are yet to formally comment on the incidents.
Kenyan President, Uhuru Kenyatta
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