A Kenyan parliamentary committee on Tuesday rejected a new draft Bill aimed at stemming terrorism in the east African nation, citing concerns over individual rights.
”The Suppression of Terrorism Bill 2003 threatens to tear apart the very fabric of one nation and could offer fertile ground for inter-religious animosity and suspicion,” the Administration of Justice and Legal Affairs Committee said in a statement.
”The Bill should be shelved before it lands on the floor of the house,” the statement said, explaining: ”Terrorism is a political crime that calls for political solutions and not necessarily through legislation.”
The committee, whose position on legal affairs heavily influences decisions by the national assembly, said the government cannot arbitrarily take away God-given rights — the Bill Of Rights — on the pretext of fighting terrorism.
Kenyan Muslims, about 30% of the country’s 31-million people, have rigorously rejected the Bill and expressed fears that it targets them.
The government announced last month that it would present the Bill to Parliament for consideration, but it immediately drew widespread criticism over expanded police powers.
The Bill allows police to arrest and search property without authority from the courts, and allows investigators to detain suspected terrorists for 36 hours without allowing them contact to the outside world.
The Bill also outlaws the wearing of clothes that are closely associated with extremist groups.
Legal experts and human rights groups in Kenya have dismissed the bill as an absurd imitation of the US Patriot Act 2001, the South African Terrorism Bill 2002 and Britain’s Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001.
”While the US Patriot Act is crafted in such a manner that targets foreigners and preserves the fundamental rights of American citizens, our own legislation seeks to reinvent the suppression of the fundamental rights and throws the Bill Of Rights out of the window,” the statement said.
”There cannot, therefore, be any legal or moral justification to compromise the sacrifices made by our gallant freedom fighters in order to appease the exigencies of foreign powers, who want to introduce modern-day colonialism through the back door,” the committee said, alluding to accusations that the US and British governments are pressurising the government to enact the Bill.
The opposition Kenya African National Union has vowed to reject the Bill, calling it a step along the way to the setting up of a US military base in Kenya.
Kenya has twice been hit by extremist attacks, first in 1998 when a car bomb blew up the US embassy in Nairobi, killing 213 people, and again in 2002 when 18 people were killed in car-bombing of an Israeli-owned hotel in Mombasa.
Last month Kenya announced that intelligence reports showed extremists were planning more attacks in the country, a warning that triggered immediate travel advisories by several Western countries.
The government charged four Kenyans in connection with the Mombasa attack, an act seen as aimed at mollifying the United States, which has accused Kenya of not doing enough to counter terror threats. – Sapa-AFP