Kenyan government threatens NGOs

Five civil society organizations in Kenya are threatened by the Government who are accusing them of being “threats to national security” without further specifications, Kenyan newspapers report.

Morten Pedersen - information worker

07. April 2006

One of the organizations mentioned among the five is Northern Aid where a member of MS-Kenya Policy Advisory Board (PAB) is the Executive Director.

At MS-Kenya country office director Anne Hoff states that the situation is being followed closely.

According to leading Kenyan paper Daily Nation, the other organizations under threat are Centre for Law and Research International, Womankind, Christian Partners and corruption Watch International.

The five organizations are threatened with being deregistrated and thus formally prohibited from working in Kenya. However, according to Daily Nation they have all vowed to continue with their work whether they are deregistrated or not.

The NGOs fight back
Twenty-six Kenyan NGO’s have protested over the alleged plans of the Government and accused it of intimidation and harassment of NGO’s and media and for unearthing and highlighting graft and other crimes.

In a statement released earlier this week in Nairobi the organizations said that the Internal Ministry of Security had indicated that some NGO’s were a threat to national security while the minister of National Heritage, MP Suleiman Shakombo, has threatened organizations that took part in anti-Government demonstrations.

According to nationwide newspaper The Standard, Shakambo last month warned that NGOs that planned demonstrations against the Government would be deregistrered.

02. January 2007