Wearing full Islamic attire and a big smile on their faces, Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta and his Deputy William Ruto hosted hundreds of Muslims for annual Ramadan iftar amid rising discontent among Muslims about the state’s alleged mistreatment of Muslims in the East African country.
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“The memories of mass arrests, detention and torture of innocent Muslims by the government in the recent months are still fresh in our minds,” Al-Amin Kimathi, Convener of the Muslim Human Rights Forum, an organization that advocates for Muslim interests in Kenya, told OnIslam.net.
“The President has never spoken out against them or did he bother to stop them. Muslim religious leaders have also been killed by government agents.
“It would have been in bad taste to have dinner with the President under those circumstances," he added.
Hosting the iftar on Friday, the two leaders were clad in full Muslim attire, adorned with big smiles, as they chatted and joked animatedly with their Muslim guests. Food was in plenty, while soft drinks flowed freely to relieve the day long fast.
This year's iftar is the second one hosted by the President since he came into office early last year as a sign of goodwill and solidarity with the Muslim community.
However, this year's event had several differences from the previous one, coming in the middle of escalating security attacks and human rights abuses against the Muslim community.
This year’s event has also failed to win much support from national leaders of the major Muslim organizations who were absent in this year's iftar dinner, after reportedly declining invitations to join in.
Among the few leaders present were Uhuru's political allies within government including leader of the government in Parliament Adan Duale and Cabinet Secretary for Mining Najib Balala, both appointees of the President.
Al-Amin is one of those leaders who boycotted the event.
He noted that various attempts by Muslim leaders to engage the President and top government officials to change the policy of abusing the rights of Muslims have borne no fruits.
Al-Amin claims that the change of the venue of the iftar, that was originally to take place in Nairobi, or the coastal city of Mombasa, came after State House was concerned about a possible fallout due to the threatened boycott by Muslim leaders.
"As Muslim leaders, we respect the President but we just want to send a strong message of protest and displeasure against collective scapegoating and harassment of Muslims under the hands of state agents," he said.
Goodwill
In his iftar speech, the President devoted a better part of it to attempt to persuade Muslims that he had nothing but goodwill for the community.
He argued he has appointed Muslims to many top state positions, including four key slots in the 18-member Cabinet.
“If my government is against Muslims, it could not have appointed Muslims to major positions in the government. Even the Foreign Affairs Minister Amina Mohamed born here is now heading our foreign ministry. Is that a government against Muslims?" he posed.
However, in his iftar speech, he made no mention of the human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings that have roiled Muslims in the recent months.
Those who would have expected an acknowledgement of the state crimes and perhaps an apology were certainly disappointed.
“Just having a meal with the President doesn't mean much when he doesn't demonstrate that he takes seriously the grievances of the Muslim community,” Abdullahi Abdi, Chairman of the Muslim Leaders Forum (one of the main Muslim organizations in the country), told OnIslam.net.
Though he lauded the President for hosting the iftar to cultivate goodwill within the Muslim community, he expressed concern that the gesture was hollow since the President has failed to speak out or act against what he termed as persecution of Muslims in the country.
“If the government continuously violates the rights of Muslims with impunity, then it is difficult not to see the iftar dinner as a mere public relations exercise," he added.
On the same evening the President was hosting the iftar, it emerged that a prominent Muslim business man was killed in his car by unknown people in a drive-by shooting in Mombasa.
The unfortunate death was eerily similar to the killing of several prominent Muslim scholars and leaders in Mombasa by suspected state agents. None of the cases have been resolved yet.
On his part, Yusuf Ibrahim, one of the Muslim leaders who serve in the management committee of Nairobi’s Jamia mosque, the largest in Kenya, said it was pointless to attend the Presidential iftar, when the government was not keen to respect the rights of Muslims.
Recent abuses that still roil Muslims in Kenya include mass arrests and detention of Muslims that occurred in April this year, following bomb blasts by unknown people in the capital city that left scores dead and injured.
For weeks after that, police descended on Muslim neighborhood, arresting thousands of people and locking them up in a sports stadium outside the city for "security screening."
From children to women to old men, the detainees, many of whom were immigrants from Somalia, were held in horrible conditions without enough food, water and access to their relatives and lawyers, despite having valid refugee identification cards from the United Nations. The stadium later came to be dubbed by Muslims as a "concentration camp."
Many Kenyans, especially of Somali origins, were also arrested if they were found without national identification cards.
Rogue police officers forcefully entered Muslim homes even at night to look for "suspicious people", while extorting huge amounts of money or making away with household valuables.
Protests by Muslim leaders went unheeded with the President appearing to have endorsed the security operation since he never spoke out against the excesses of the police against Muslims.
Muslims are also still angry about the unresolved killings of Muslim religious and business leaders in the country that has intensified in the last one year. The killings are believed to be the work of undercover state security agents.
"We hope that the boycott of this year's iftar will nudge the President and his team to take the concerns of Muslims more seriously in future," said Al-Amin.
“Muslims deserve respect just like everyone else.” /SR
