Kenyan opposition lawyer denied entry at airport

By Magdalene Mukami and Andrew Wasike

NAIROBI, Kenya (AA) – Kenyan opposition lawyer Miguna Miguna has been denied entry in Kenya in a stand-off that has lasted for more than 15 hours at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

On Monday night, a United Arab Emirates-bound plane was delayed for more than five hours after a defiant Miguna refused to board the plane to be sent back to Canada of which he is also a citizen.

”They want to remove me by force and put me in a plane, purportedly that I am an undocumented person so I am not going. They say they want to remove me by force so they will have to kill me first because I am a Kenyan citizen,” Miguna said, adding that he was not travelling with a Canadian passport but his Kenyan identification card and court orders.

“Four hundred people were killed [during last year’s post-election violence] like insects, people have been maimed, thousands of them by a despotic police force. I have received universal support. I am here without food or anything they have detained me incommunicado,” Miguna added.

Videos posted on social media purported to show Kenyan police shoving a defiant Miguna into the plane.

On Tuesday, Joseph Munywoki, Kenyan immigration services director, released a statement saying: "Miguna automatically lost his citizenship in 1998 when he acquired Canadian citizenship at a time when Kenya did not allow dual citizenship, instead of producing the requisite documents he had exited with from Canada. He became unruly.”

Munywoki’s statements contravene the High Court ruling which stipulated Miguna could return to Kenya.

Munywoki added that his department had issued Tuesday requisite application forms for Miguna to fill to regularize his citizenship status.

On Feb. 6, the self-proclaimed general of the National Resistance Movement (NRM) Miguna Miguna was deported to Canada after being arrested for swearing in opposition leader Raila Odinga as the people’s president after two successive and tense presidential elections in 2017 resulted in the deaths of more than 100 people, according to human rights organizations.

Since then, Raila Odinga has shaken hands with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and called for a truce saying that they will work together to unite Kenyans, a move that Miguna has termed as a “betrayal for the people of Kenya."
Kenya’s High Court on Feb. 26 ruled that “Miguna should be issued travel documents and he should be allowed back to Kenya on a day he chooses and to remain within the country until his petition is heard and determined."