Kenyan election registration officials are systematically discriminating against Muslim citizens by denying them the chance to cast ballots in this week’s presidential and parliamentary elections, sometimes using the so-called war on terror as a pretext, the government-funded rights watchdog said.
“The process of vetting Kenyan-Somalis, Nubians and Kenyan Arabs…is discriminatory and violates the principle of equal treatment,” Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said in a report.
The commission has investigated numerous reports that Kenyan Muslims were treated unfairly when applying for registration cards. They were often subjected to unusually lengthy checks by the authorities. Officials often demanded to see alternative proofs of citizenship, like land titles or grandparents’ IDs, even though this was not required by law, the commission found.
Muslims make up ten million of Kenya’s 36 million population. Some 14 million Kenyans are eligible to vote on December 27, to elect a new president and parliament.
Mainly Muslim and nomadic people of north-east Kenya, a vast, arid region on the borders of Ethiopia and Somalia, feel very isolated. “We have been treated as outcasts, completely sidelined while they pour money into central and eastern,” complains Mohamed Ali, deputy head of a school in tatty Mandera town.