Eight Kenyan politicians are behind bars on suspicion of hate speech in the latest sign of rising political tensions a year ahead of elections.<\/p>\n
Three lawmakers from the ruling Jubilee party, and four plus a senator from the opposition CORD alliance, were ordered to be detained for four days by Kenya's High Court to allow investigations into alleged hate speech and incitement.<\/p>\n
The detained Jubilee MPs, Moses Kuria, Kimani Ngunjiri and Ferdinand Waititu, are loyalists of President Uhuru Kenyatta and members of his Kikuyu tribe.<\/p>\n
The CORD politicians are MPs Timothy Bosire, Aisha Jumwa, Junet Mohammed and Florence Mutua, and senator Johnson Muthama.<\/p>\n
They all spent Tuesday night in detention.<\/p>\n
The arrests follow weeks of occasionally deadly opposition protests against the election commission that CORD leader Raila Odinga believes cheated him of victory in 2013.<\/p>\n
Ordering their detention late Tuesday, magistrate Daniel Ogembo said the eight's influence and power meant they might interfere with investigations, and remanded them in custody until June 17.<\/p>\n
Jubilee MPs Kuria and Waititu are accused of making public statements threatening the life of Odinga, a Luo, while Ngunjiri is said to have called for Luos in the central town of Nakuru to return to western Kenya, their traditional homeland.<\/p>\n
On the CORD side Mohammed, Mutua and Muthama are accused of inciting the storming of police headquarters, while Bosire and Jumwa are alleged to have predicted chaos and violence as a result of Kenyatta's failure to unite the country in the wake of widespread and deadly political violence following the 2007 elections.<\/p>\n
More than 1,100 people died and half a million were forced from their homes after that vote as politically-motivated tribal violence mainly pitting Kikuyus against Luos and Kalenjins.<\/p>\n
Kenyatta and his now-deputy William Ruto were charged with crimes against humanity for allegedly directing the violence, but the International Criminal Court subsequently dropped both cases.<\/p>\n
The alliance between Kenyatta and Ruto, a Kalenjin, helped prevent violence around the 2013 polls but foreign diplomats and observers fear political and tribal tensions are once again rising ahead of elections due in August 2017.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Eight Kenyan politicians are behind bars on suspicion of hate speech in the latest sign of rising political tensions a year ahead of elections. Three lawmakers from the ruling Jubilee party, and four plus a senator from the opposition CORD alliance, were ordered to be detained for four days by Kenya's High Court to allow […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[],"ji_location":[2299],"class_list":["post-27854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-other","ji_location-kenya"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n