Evelyn Kwamboka
24 November 2007
Nairobi — A Nairobi court has stopped the Government from deporting 26 Somali asylum seekers.
Lady Justice Roselyne Wendoh stopped the deportation for 30 days and ordered that the concerned authorities be served with the suit papers.
The orders were issued after Kituo Cha Sheria's Chief Executive Officer, Dr Ekuru Aukot, convinced the court that the deportation of the refugees, currently being held at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, is against the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
He said this when representing Ms Gertrude Angote of Kituo Cha Sheria in an application she filed at the Nairobi High Court.
"They have been denied their legal right to access the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to determine their asylum status," he said.
The 26 asylum seekers' travel documents indicate that they are supposed to be flown to Mogadishu. Aukot said the asylum seekers fear prosecution and death if they are deported.
"They have not been given an opportunity to challenge their deportation order before competent jurisdiction, which would have ruled on the matter as well as on the regularity and the decision to expel them," he said.
The Refugees Act 2006 gives asylum seekers 30 days to apply for refugee status.
Aukot said the decision of the Immigration Minister Gideon Konchella, Attorney General Amos Wako and Commissioner of Police Maj Gen Hussein Ali is radical, unprocedural and against the rules of natural justice.
Kenya has deported 17 Somalis over what authorities termed "questionable immigration status".The deportees were among 100 others expelled from Entebbe, Uganda. The aliens arrived on November 12 from Uganda.
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