(NDIMA/IFEX) – Lulu Kebede, one of the Ethiopian journalists who fled to Kenya after persecution by the Ethiopian regime, was arrested by Kenyan security agents on 22 August 1998. **See IFEX alert of 8 April 1998** Following the recent bombings of the American embassies in the Kenyan and Tanzanian capitals (Nairobi and Dar es Salaam […]
(NDIMA/IFEX) – Lulu Kebede, one of the Ethiopian journalists who fled to
Kenya after
persecution by the Ethiopian regime, was arrested by Kenyan security agents
on 22 August 1998.
**See IFEX alert of 8 April 1998**
Following the recent bombings of the American embassies in the Kenyan and
Tanzanian capitals (Nairobi and Dar es Salaam respectively), security agents
are reported
to have rounded up several refugees with the intention of repatriating them.
According to NDIMA, last week, the Kenya Government directed asylum seekers
without proper documents to report to the Immigration Department Office.
Home Affairs,
National Heritage, Culture and Social Services Minister Shariff Nassir said
the government was disturbed by the large number of asylum seekers living in
the country illegally. The Minister said that any asylum seeker in
possession of a protection letter should surrender it to the Immigration
Department. But both the Minister and the Principal Immigration Officer,
Frank Kwinga, denied that the directive had come as a result of the recent
bomb blast in Nairobi, which left more than 250 people dead and over 5,000
injured.
Lulu Kebede has been under the protection of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and had all his documents in order. On 26
August, a UNHCR representative in Nairobi told NDIMA that his office had
written to the Kenya government urging it to release Kebede. NDIMA has also
established that the Kenya government has asked the UNHCR to stop giving
protection to refugees in Kenya
(see also http://www.oneworld.org/ndima/album.htm).
