OPINION: Shakahola and Muslims: Tale of prejudice and pain

By Abu Ayman Abusufian

The death toll in the Shakahola tragedy has eclipsed the 200 mark but with hundreds of people still missing. There are fears are that this tragedy could turn into the worst mass killings in post-independence Kenya.

The horrid killings have elicited questions among Kenyans on how these grotesque actions could have happened right under the nose of prying institutions such as the police, National Intelligence Service and local administration.

President William Ruto described Pastor Paul Mackenzie, the man behind the doomsday Christian cult, as a “terrorist” and pledged tough action against rogue preachers.

Leaders, including the First Lady Rachel Ruto and the Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, have asserted that Mackenzie and other rogue clerics should bear individual responsibilities for their crimes and their misdemeanours should not be linked to the church.
However, this is in total contrast with what the Muslim community has endured in the so-called war on terror where a whole community was profiled, victimised, criminalised and suffered collective punishment-all for the crimes of a few vicious individuals.

The war on terror was marked by arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detentions and wanton killings while families of suspects were profiled and Muslim institutions placed under scrutiny.

For the victims, the lucky ones made it home after horrid sessions of torture. The unlucky ones met their gruesome end in mysterious killings and drive by shooting as was the case with Aboud Rogo.
There were also macabre murders where bodies were dumped in national parks, forests and rivers while hundreds of others just vanished without trace, leaving their families in a life of constant misery and agony.

Even after persistent calls from the Muslim leadership and human rights groups to investigate the disappearances and murders, the government never showed any goodwill to probe the incidents.

Whenever a terrorist incident happened, focus was not on who perpetrated the grotesque act but the Muslim community as a whole came under scrutiny.
Institutions and mosques were raided with the most infamous being Masjid Musa in Mombasa where in a sacrilegious act, police officers stormed into the mosques with their shoes on as they afflicted brutality on worshippers.

During the raid, one person was killed inside the mosque, hundreds were arrested while some disappeared never to be seen again, including Hemed Salim, an electrician who was undertaking repairs and was last captured by cameras in the hands of police officers.

After an attack in Likoni, Mombasa, which targeted a church, security officers descended on Eastleigh and South ‘C’ areas in Nairobi, where hundreds of people were arrested and detained for days in squalid and deplorable conditions at what came to be known as the Kasarani concentration camp.

While it cannot be denied that among those who fell victims to the security operations were rogue criminals; as per the law, the rights of suspects have to respected and observed. Regretfully, when it came to Muslims, adherence to the law was a privilege rather than a right.

Through his preaching, Mackenzie lured hundreds of his followers to Shakahola Forest where they were promised salvation through starvation to death.

Another popular Pastor Ezekiel Odero has also been linked to the murders and is under investigations.
Despite the gravity of the crimes, the clerics were accorded their due rights at the time of their arrest. Odero was even allowed to drive himself to the police station. Even when their churches were raided by the police, the law was observed. Those found inside were not brutally arrested or treated as suspects.

While Odero’s church reopened even before the court had given its orders, Masjid Musa and three other mosques remained closed for weeks. A Muslim education facility, Darul Irshad Centre in Machakos county, has been closed for several years based on unfounded claims of terrorism links. Efforts by Jamia Mosque and Supkem to engage the government to have it reopened are yet to bear any fruits.

This prejudiced attitude has left lingering questions among Muslims if indeed the government sees them as equal citizens with other Kenyans.

During the iftar event in the month of Ramadhan at State House, President Ruto termed the injustices in the war on terror as a dark episode, promising that no Kenyan will ever again be subjected to such injustices during his administration.
But as the government saw the need to have an enquiry to probe the death of more than 200 Kenyans, families of hundreds of Kenyans who remain with unanswered questions on the disappearances and murder of their loved ones also have a right to know the fate of their kith and kin.

A commission of enquiry as was the call for Muslim leaders during the iftar is a pathway to justice and this will not only help to heal the wounds, but also ensure that such injustices will never happen to the current and future generations.

Writer is a member of the Jamia Mosque Committee, Nairobi