New laws will create new freedom fighters
What you need to know:
Mr Kenyatta has assured the public that they have nothing to fear if they are not terrorists.
He did not define ‘terrorist’ but recent events indicate that everyone from noisy bloggers to humanitarian NGOs fall into that bracket.
The laws are constructed to silence those allegedly responsible for recent massacres as well as those blamed for bringing the Ocampo team into Kenya.
Regretfully, Christian religious leaders rushed headlong into approving these laws that deny basic rights and trample on human dignity
August 9, 1971 is a day etched forever in the memory of the nationalist community in Northern Ireland.
On that fateful Monday morning, British Army swooped on homes all over the province and detained 342 young men that state security considered terrorist suspects.
The British Prime Minister Edward Heath had 24 hours earlier secretly approved the introduction of the Special Powers Act that empowered the Belfast devolved government to detain these suspects indefinitely.
Fifteen months later, there were 2,000 suspects in detention without charges or trials.
Protests followed and the detainees were celebrated in a song The Men behind the Wire that was immediately banned from the airwaves.
The Special Powers Act was a desperate measure to contain the protests of the Civil Rights Movement that had merely demanded the right of ‘One Man, One Vote’ and the immediate ending of gerrymandering.
The law was destined to fail and the only winner was the Irish Republican Army (IRA) who welcomed hundreds of recruits as the number of young moderates reduced considerably.
TORTURE AND DEPRIVATION
Internment was viewed as a war on the nationalist population and stories of torture and deprivation emerging from the internment camps only added to that narrative.
A decade later it was discovered that 95 percent of the detainees had no association with paramilitaries but were merely human rights activists.
Those who never learn from history are doomed to repeat it and countries all over the globe have repeated the mistakes of the British in responding to dissent and political violence.
It's now Kenya’s turn to choose brawn over brain; to put the law of force before the force of law and to play into the hands of Al-Shabaab and every other dissident group.
The big winner in Kenya’s case will be Al-Shabaab and the big loser almost certainly the Constitution.
Mr Kenyatta has assured the public that they have nothing to fear if they are not terrorists.
He did not define ‘terrorist’ but recent events indicate that everyone from noisy bloggers to humanitarian NGOs fall into that bracket.
RUSHED HEADLONG
The laws are constructed to silence those allegedly responsible for recent massacres as well as those blamed for bringing the Ocampo team into Kenya.
Regretfully, Christian religious leaders rushed headlong into approving these laws that deny basic rights and trample on human dignity.
As Pope Francis brokered the end of the Cuba-America cold war, his local representatives gave backing to laws that gave credence to the notion that Kenya has returned to Nyayoism.
Resistance to internment brought down the Belfast government a year later, and direct rule from London followed. Insisting on the repressive elements in the new laws could well be the first nail in the Jubilee coffin, too. Already whole sections of the population who hitherto had been fence sitters are now voicing their opposition. Many let their guard down and concentrated on making money when the Constitution was passed four years ago. The Security Amendment Bill is a wake-up call that will produce a whole new generation of activists who are determined to retain the freedoms that the Constitution guaranteed.
[email protected] @GabrielDolan1
