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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Kenya Muslims angry but call off Mombasa protest |
| 2007-03-24 |
| Muslim leaders called off plans to disrupt this weekend's World Cross Country Championships in Mombasa, although security remained high in the Kenyan port city on Friday. Protests planned for Saturday had been included in a travel warning by the United States that said the athletics event, a source of national pride for the east African country, "may be the target of an unspecified terrorist attack." The Muslim leaders said they had been treated "with contempt and utter disrespect" in talks with senior government officials who cared more about the race than the rights of Muslims, but had nonetheless decided to call off the demonstrations. "We have greater interest for our country at heart, rather than short-term gains or reactions to a government that is soon to face the test of the general elections," the National Muslim Leaders Forum said in a statement published in Friday's papers. The city's mosques were quiet after Friday prayers, the time at which earlier protests in the city had started. Kenyan security forces were taking no chances -- policemen were stationed roughly every kilometre on the roads into the city, and the government said it would put policemen in homes along the Mombasa golf course where the event will take place. The U.S. travel warnings have been in force since 1998 and for a time contributed to a downturn in the nation's economic pillar of tourism, creating bitterness among many who believed Kenya was paying a price for Washington's policies. Kenya's Muslims - most of whom live on the coast and are about 10 percent of the mainly Christian country's 35 million population -- have complained of abuse and discrimination at the hands of security forces during counter-terrorism operations. That was the case when at least 88 of them from 20 countries were deported by Kenya to Somalia as part of an operation to capture militant Islamists fleeing a new year's war in the neighbouring state, Kenyan watchdog Muslim Human Rights said in a statement on Friday. A round of arrests of prostitutes and suspected criminals to clean up Mombasa before the race aggravated the simmering animosity between Muslims and the government, a close counter-terrorism partner of the United States. U.S. Ambassador to Kenya Michael Ranneberger said the longstanding warning was not a criticism of Kenya, which he said had "mounted an extraordinary effort" to counter terrorism. "It reflects the fact Kenya lives in a bad neighbourhood," he told a press conference this week. Another American official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the planned protests "never would have prompted a warning on their own," but were included to differentiate them from the original threat of an attack picked up by U.S. intelligence. Nonetheless, it appeared to have the opposite effect. "We feel it is against Muslims," waiter Said Mohammed, 52, told Reuters. |
| Posted by:ryuge |
| #2 You create a reputation, and you live with the consequences. The number of non-muslim terror events can be counted on one hand. The amount of seething, spittle-spewing, threats, temper-tantrums, and sheer unpleasantness by muslims have left a bitter taste in the mouths of the rest of the world. We don't like you, for good reason. Live with it. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2007-03-24 22:20 |
| #1 Angry Muslims? Somebody fart near a mosque? |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-03-24 10:26 |