Kenya deports Somalis without trial
Bashir Makhtal’s family tell Al Jazeera he was not an Islamic courts fighter.
The Kenyan authorities said her husband was with about 100 Union of Islamic Courts fighters and their families who tried to illegally cross the frontier.
A four-year-old girl was held in police custody for thirty days before being released, he added.
| Your Views |
|
“The favour of Western countries is vital to Somalia’s future” Angus Hogg, Horsham, UK |
Within days of the arrests, lawyers turned up at the Nairobi high court to argue their clients’ cases but all the government provided was a passenger manifest.
More than 50 people were put on a plane and flown out of Kenya before the courts could act.
Speaking about the status of the Somalis as refugees, Alfred Mutua, a Kenya government spokesman, said: “The Kenyan government is not aware of any conflict that is posing a danger to the lives of the people of Somalia.
“If you go to Mogadishu today, if you go to Baidoa and others, you’re not seeing bodies on the streets, you’re seeing people continuing with their daily lives.
“And Somalia has a government – the transitional government of Somalia that is in control of the situation.”
International law
One of the lawyers for the deportees, Harun Ndubi, strongly disagrees.
Ndubi said: “The international refugee law, the Geneva convention, has been broken by Kenya. The international human rights law has been broken.
 |
| Aziza Osman, left, said she had not heard from her husband since he was deported |
“There is international customer law that has been broken also by the Kenya government taking people … who are likely to be executed, taking them back, without the judicial process which they are entitled [to] wherever in the world they are.”
Kenyan Muslims often feel victimised by what the government says is a campaign against terrorism, Adow said.
Aziza and her mother said they have heard no word from their loved ones since their deportation.
They join a lengthening list of people angry and frustrated with their government’s actions.