BILL REKINDLES PAST TORTURES AND REFRESH CALLS FOR CESSATION

BY ADOW JUBAT

 

Calls for cessation have been rekindled in North-Eastern region as residents converged in Garissa town to express their vehement oppositions to the proposed draconian Security amendment Bill 2014.

The public rally called for by the religious leaders under the umbrella of Supreme Council of Kenya Muslim (SUPKEM) and backed by some civic organisations accused the Jubilee administration of showing sings, of a hate and intolerance towards Muslim communities and particularly the Somali people through their successive action since they come into power.

Abdullahi Sirat, the chairman of Supkem, the North-Eastern region said that majority of clauses in the proposed security Bill is a kin to previous torturous Acts of parliament such as the outlying district ordinance of 1902, which effectively declared the NFD a closed and indemnity act of 19970, which led to the massacres of innocent Somali ethnic people in Wajir, Mandera, Garissa and Isiolo by state agents hiding under the protection of the act, which granted them impunity from any form of prosecutions up to date. 

Sirat said, the proposed legislations in the security Bill will not only reverse the gains made by Kenyans in their hard struggles-that cost lives for the last 50 years, whose fruits was just realized with endorsement of widely acceptable constitution which grantees, the wishes and inspirations of Kenyans in 2010.

He said “The government has turned the war against the terrorism into open war against Muslim and the Somali community. From the past experiences such as the harassment of Somalis in Eastleigh and the burning of people property in Garissa by the military and the killing of prominent clerics in Mombasa, we are concerned that this law will be bring more miseries to the people of Northern and coastal regions because of their faith persuasions”,

“We are more concern because the proposed law condemns a suspects and accused person even before they are proven guilty by a court of law by holding them longer period. We also sense sinister when, you legislate that a religious leader of a place of worship and the committee running the place will be held responsible in the event that illegal weapons were found in their mosques or the church, because people with ulterior motives can plan them to victims innocent people” He noted.

Abdullahi Salat, the Supkem chairman Garissa County said, feelings of alienation among the Muslim and Somali community in particularly has a fever pitch following killings of clerics in Mombasa by people yet to be arrested by the government and the torture of Somalis in Eastleigh state in Nairobi under the pretext of fighting terrorism adding that the passage of the proposed security Bill would be the last nail of alienation of these constituent of communities.

In symbolic move the rally to condemn the Bill attended by thousands of residents converged at Garissa primary playing ground, where hundreds of people were reported killed in 1981, after they were assembled by security agents and kept several weeks without water and food in a collective punishment, after bandits killed a senior government official.

The coordinator for Northern Forum for Democracy (NFD) said if the Jubilee government thinks that Muslims and people from Northern region were the source of the soaring insecurity in the country, they should call for a referendum to allow them to breakaway with their “problems” so that they can grantee the security of the favored other Kenyans.

“If Jubilee government thinks these two regions (coast and NEP) the source of security or the sympathizers of al-Shabaab, then they should let us go. We are tied of been killed and harassed arbitrarily” he noted.

In the meeting the residents agreed to watch keenly the proceeding of the proposed Bill in the parliament in order to recall any MP from the region who support or failed to fight to shoot it down.

“All other leaders including senators, governors and members of the County assembly, who failed to condemn this draconian must be seen as an enemy of Islam and must never be re-elected into any public office” said NFD coordinator amid affirmative cheers from the mammoth crowd.