Me, subversive? I’m just doing my journalism

Her composure and smile belie the pain of her eight-month fight with the Immigration Department in court pursuing justice for herself and family to be recognised and to remain in Kenya.

The nervousness and shock that greeted British-born journalist and human rights campaigner Lucy Hannan when she was declared as a “subversive” and “prohibited immigrant” have been supplanted by the steadfast belief that she will triumph in the end.

“Initially, it came as a complete surprise. September and October (2013) was a particularly stressful period, but since I hired the services of [lawyer] Kethi Kilonzo, I feel optimistic that the right thing will be done. I have great faith in my lawyer, and I also have faith in the courts. I take comfort in the law,” Ms Hannan said.

“I am optimistic. And these days I carry a copy of the Constitution with me in my bag every day because it’s an excellent document.”

On October 30 last year, Interior Secretary Joseph ole Lenku declared Ms Hannan, whose video recordings were used as evidence by civil society in the Supreme Court petition challenging the election of President Uhuru Kenyatta, a prohibited person whose presence in Kenya is against “national interest”.

“In consequence of this declaration, the said Lucy Elizabeth Hannan is, for all purposes of the Immigration Act, other than for the purposes of sub-section (1) of Section 33, a member of the prohibited class and a Prohibited Immigrant,” said Mr Lenku.

The four-paragraph declaration, though issued last year, was only disclosed to her in March this year when she petitioned the Immigration Department to give reasons for refusing to extend her work permit.

“It was very short and vague. And it was the first time I saw anything in writing. When it was produced in court on March 12, it was the first time I saw the Declaration of Prohibition – yet it was signed on October 30, 2013. So you have to ask yourself: how come a statement that serious is signed on October 30, yet you allow the person to continue walking around for another five months? It doesn’t add up.

I don’t think I have a divine right to a work permit, but everybody living within the boundaries of Kenya does have a constitutional right to fair process. All I am asking for is fair process,” she told the Sunday Nation.

Attached to the declaration was a replying affidavit dated December 16, 2013 by Mr Alfred Abuya Omangi, an immigration officer, following a petition by Ms Kilonzo.

In the affidavit, the Immigration Department states that “the petitioner/applicant applied for renewal of her work permit but the same was not renewed due to adverse security reports” that remain unexplained to date.

National interest

“That, indeed, the confidential security reports indicate that the petitioner/applicant has been engaged in subversive activities against the Kenyan government and, therefore, her presence in Kenya is contrary to national interest,” the immigration officer said on behalf of the Director General, Kenya Citizens and Foreign Nationals Management Service.

Ms Hannan has filed a petition in the High Court arguing that the Cabinet Secretary’s actions are in breach of rules of natural justice. She also wants Mr ole Lenku to furnish her with reasons for the charge of subversion and be accorded a fair process.

“They have to explain what they mean, but I work as a journalist on human rights, and this is a government that doesn’t like critical media. The attitude towards the civil society sector has been very clear – it’s hostile. There has also been a foreign policy shift and anger towards Westerners. These are all issues in the public domain. They are known facts. Where I fall into that, I don’t know. The Ministry of Interior has to explain why they called me subversive,” she said.

The notice of her demand letter to government expired on March 26, with no response forthcoming.

Ms Hannan, the mother of four and a former BBC journalist, has been a resident of Kenya, working in the country since 1988.

After leaving the BBC, she set up Voxcom Ltd, a private media company in Nairobi producing films for humanitarian organisations including the United Nations, the European Union and Oxfam. She lives with her disabled mother in Nairobi. She also has a son from a previous relationshhip with Kamukunji MP Yusuf Hassan.

This is my home

“You know, this (Kenya) is my home. So when you say go back – go back to what? My family is here, my family home is here, my disabled mother is here, my eldest son is Kenyan. My daughter was born in Kenya. So it is not a case of going back. Going back to what? I have invested here. My life is here. I am very attached to Kenya. There’s a lot in Kenya that I love. This country means more to me than the one I was born in,” she said.

“It is not unusual in this day and age to choose to live in a country different from the one you were born in. I am not an expatriate – I first set foot in Kenya in the 1980s and chose to build my life here.”

In 2010, she co-founded a not-for-profit organisation InformAction with former Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) chairman Maina Kiai to draw attention through films to what she terms the country’s “crisis of impunity” after the 2007/08 post-election violence.

Her films include Getting Justice: Kenya’s Deadly Game of Wait and See (2009), Kesho Itakuja (Tomorrow will Come) which looks at the justice options for the post-election violence victims and suspects, and Unfinished Business: Power and Poverty in Kenya’s Central Region, launched in January 2013 at the Alliance Française, Nairobi.

Getting Justice: Kenya’s Deadly Game of Wait and See (2009) raised negative reactions from police and local administrators.

“We were prevented from screening it in Burnt Forest, the epicentre of the PEV. People wanted to see it and discuss; audiences attend voluntarily and they speak their minds about a lot of issues.

But there has never been a case that InformAction showed a film and it caused an adverse or disruptive reaction from the people on the ground. All it ever provokes is discussion – healthy, meaningful discussion about things like justice, corruption, leadership, impunity – that sort of thing,” Ms Hannan said.

She also participated in the production of Disputed Fields, a film that looks at the historic land conflict in the Rift Valley, and No Man’s Land, which depicts the “acute marginalisation and gun proliferation in Northern Kenya”.

InformAction also provided the video evidence of electoral irregularities when civil society challenged the presidential election results. The society’s petition was fronted by rights campaigners Gladwell Otieno and Zahid Rajan.

Ms Hannan maintains that she has not engaged in anything that would warrant her being declared subversive. “Subversion is the darling of dictators because it’s very difficult to define legally. What it essentially criminalises is criticism,” she said.

Some former Moi-era torture victims have condemned the “retrogressive” decision to declare Ms Hannan a prohibited immigrant. “To the best of my knowledge, that charge of subversion has been forgotten, but it seems to be creeping back. We are going back to the dark days of detention without trial and trumped up charges of treason,” said former MP Koigi wa Wamwere.

The former legislator added that the charge of subversion is difficult to define legally and it is for that reason that the Kenyatta and Moi regimes would detain their critics without trial because the charge could not stand in a proper court of law.

A survivor of the Nyayo torture chambers, Mr Wafula Buke, said Ms Hannan’s situation was unfortunate.

According to Mr Buke, it was even more suspicious when the management of Nyayo House attempted to block journalists from accompanying KNCHR officials when they visited the torture chambers last week during a commemoration of Kenya’s dark past.

“When such things happen, we are not safe. My fear is that the Nyayo torture cells may come back,” said Mr Buke.

Others who have suffered similar fates are Sheikh Khalid Balala, a Muslim preacher, activist and founder of the unregistered Islamic Party of Kenya who was, in 1994, stripped of his Kenyan citizenship when he travelled to Germany, for being critical of the Moi regime.

A similar fate befell Salim Lone, a communications adviser to former Prime Minister Raila Odinga who was jailed, stripped of his citizenship, and exiled to the US in 1982 during a crackdown on perceived coup plotters.

Former Wundanyi MP Mwandawiro Mghanga, another victim of the past crackdown on dissidents, said the charge of subversion was normally framed as sedition which is an attempt to overthrow the government.

“We would be taken to court at night and the court house was normally a dingy basement room. It should not be there in this time and age. We are now in a multi-party democracy and charges of subversion will be totally against the Constitution,” he said.