The Government Is Shutting Down Civil Society Groups
That Questioned The Disputed Presidential Election, Their Officials Said
Yesterday.
The deregistrations
have generated national and international condemnation.
The state says
the NGOs are not properly registered and have violated numerous financial, tax,
administrative and hiring regulations.
The NGOs call
it a purge and a witch-hunt.
This is the
latest onslaught in President Uhuru Kenyatta's war on NGOs — especially good
governance, election education and human rights organisations — since he came
to office.
In 24
hours,the NGO Coordination Board — the state-run body that registers and
regulates NGOs — has written to the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC) and
the Africa Centre for Open Governance (Africog), saying they risk punishment
for administrative and tax violations.
Their bank
accounts have been frozen.
On Monday,
there was speculation KHRC was planning to petition the Supreme Court to
nullify Kenyatta's reelection. Yesterday, Executive Director George Kegoro said
they will address press conference today on the issue.
The deadline
for presidential petitions is Friday.
NASA has ruled
out challenging the presidential results in court but sources intimidated it
would use proxies, especially anti-Jubilee right groups. They could petition
the Supreme Court to overturn the IEBC declaration of Uhuru as President-elect.
The same deregistration
happened in August to the charitable foundation linked to Rosemary Odinga,
daughter of NASA flagbearer Raila Odinga, and in May to the charitable
foundation of Kalonzo Musyoka, the NASA deputy flagbearer.
International
and domestic observers have said the election process was largely free and
fair, but opposition leader Raila has disputed the official results, showing
Kenyatta won by 1.4 million votes.
The NGO
Coordination Board is led by CEO Fazul Mohamed, who in December 2016 was
declared unfit to hold office by the Ombudsman. His academic qualifications and
suitability have been questioned without success.
He was
unavailable yesterday to answer questions arising from his actions.
Mwenda Njoka,
spokesman for the Interior ministry, confirmed that the NGO Board letters
circulating on social media were genuine. Africog and KHRC said they had not
received any official communication.
"This is
an attack on any kind of independent voice," Africa executive director
Gladwell Otieno said.
Otieno repeatedly
raised concerns about what she described as insufficient preparations by the
Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission in the run-up to the General
Election.
Both NGOs also
expressed public concern over the unsolved torture-murder of a key election
official a week before the vote.
International
rights groups Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged the government to
respect NGOs' work.
"The High
Commissioner called for civil society actors and media to be allowed to work
without hindrance or fear of retaliation," the UN said, in a statement
from Geneva.
KHRC is
chaired by Professor Makau Mutua, a leading Jubilee critic who has said for the
second time he would not recognise Uhuru's disputed victory. He said the same
after the 2013 polls.
“The sins of
2013 have been compounded. That is why as a matter of my conscience I can't —
and won't — recognise Uhuru Kenyatta as President,” he tweeted on Saturday.
Almost 24
hours after deregistering KHRC, Fazul yesterday wrote to the DCI to shut down,
Africog "for operating illegally".
Africog COG
entered the limelight in 2013 when alongside Cord, it petitioned the election
of President Kenyatta.
Jubilee also
accused some NGOs of being used in procuring and coaching witnesses to testify
against Uhuru and his DP William Ruto at the ICC.
In 2013, a
Jubilee MP sponsored a Bill to limit NGOs' foreign funding, a clear attempt to
cripple them. At the time terrorism links were cited.
The
legislation was defeated.
It sought to
restrict foreign funding to a maximum of 15 percent of NGOs' total budgets.
During the
December 12, 2016, Jamhuri Day celebrations, Uhuru's disdain for NGOs was
evident. He stated some global powers were sponsoring regime change in Kenya
"in the guise of supporting good governance or civic education".
Yesterday,
human rights lawyer Haron Ndubi dismissed purported de-registration of KHRC. He
said the NGO Coordination Act that established the Fazul-led board was repealed
and the deregistration decision was therefore null and void.
"At the
moment, the so-called NGO Board doesn't exist and the law upon which Fazul was
employed, too," he said.
He addressed a
press conference by key civil society groups to protest attempts to shut down
key NGOs.
Kegoro said it
was another attempt to harass and intimidate them.
The
allegations are that KHRC operated illegal accounts, failed to abide by tax
obligations, concealed transactions in relations to its board members and made
false declarations to the NGO board.
Kegoro said
this had been a recurring matter, dispensed with in court last year.
"Therefore,
it is a travesty of justice that the board, and in particular Fazul, would
insist on flagrant abuse of the office in total disregard of KHRC's
constitutional rights and authority of the courts," he said.
Kegoro said
they read saw strong government hand behind Fazul's actions.
"The
brazen nature of this attempt also calls to question whether this errant public
officer enjoys political support to undertake such abuse of office," he
said.
Renowned
activist and former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful
assembly and of association Maina Kiai asked whey the government is encouraging
people to challenge election outcomes in court — while at the same time waging
war against those who express intentions to do so.
"You tell
us to go to court but deregister the people who can go to court. It is up to
the state, not us, to decide whether they want legal redress or extralegal
redress," he said. He said the assessment of civil society groups of the
election results "had shown lots of inconsistencies'.
"But we
have been involved in this struggle for a long time and would not drop it any
time and those who want to arrest me come do it. Because we do this work not to
get benefits but because we believe in the cause," he added.
Coalition for
Constitution Implementation Kenya (CCI Kenya), Coalition for Grassroots Human
Rights Defenders Kenya (CGHRD-Kenya) and Bunge la Mwananchi (BLM) also
participated in the joint press conference. They said Fazul's board became moribund
after the passing of the Public Benefits Organisations Act in 2012.
This is not
the first time the government through Fazul has been trying to clip the wings
of 'anti-Jubilee' NGOs.
Just before
the elections, Fazul went for three perceived opposition leaning NGOs in a
spirited bid to have their accounts frozen. Rosemary Odinga's Kalonzo Musyoka's
and Evans Kidero's foundations.
On the other
hand he has awarded Sonko Rescue Team and First Lady Margaret Kenyatta's Beyond
Zero campaign as the best performing public benefit entities.
"Fazul is
an enthusiastic attention seeker. He can't do without attention. He is either
shutting down supposed state enemies or awarding state leaning organizations
like Sonko Rescue Team.
