Meeting Assesses Human Rights Implications of War on Terror in East Africa

To complement OSI-Washington D.C.'s efforts on the U.S.-led war on terror agenda, OSIEA supported a regional meeting to discuss the impact of U.S. government counterterrorism strategies in East Africa.

Following pressure from the U.S., East African governments are conducting antiterror operations that involve arbitrary arrest, detention without trial, and even relocation to third countries in extraordinary renditions. Investigations by Muslim Human Rights Forum (MHRF), an OSIEA grantee, have established that the Kenyan government has rendered over 100 persons to Ethiopia and Somalia (including its own citizens), as well as one to Guantanamo Bay.

East African governments are being encouraged by the U.S. to pass antiterrorism laws and to create antiterror security forces. In this context, there is a critical challenge for human rights groups in East Africa to formulate strategies. MHRF and the Kenya Human Rights Institute (KHRI) convened the two-day conference that brought together activists, human rights experts, academics, and victims of war on terror abuses with the aim of spurring fresh ideas on how nonstate actors could best harmonize their monitoring efforts and engage in advocacy on this issue.

While the discussion yielded some good ideas, the meeting would have benefited from a stronger presence of non-Kenyan participants. In Uganda, OSIEA grantee HURINET-Uganda (Uganda's leading human's rights coalition) has petitioned the High Court of Uganda for a constitutional interpretation of the antiterrorism law on the grounds that it impinges on other fundamental rights and freedoms guaranteed under the Constitution of Uganda.