Kenya lifts travel ban on opposition figures

Two prominent supporters of Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga were allowed to leave the country on Tuesday a day after authorities prevented them from doing so.

Senator James Orengo and financier Jimi Wanjigi were initially barred from flying by immigration officials who said they had not been notified that a court had ordered a travel ban on the men be lifted.

The two were eventually allowed to fly to Zimbabwe on Tuesday afternoon to attend the funeral of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, Odinga’s spokesman said.

The interior ministry did not respond to a request for comment and it was not clear why the men’s passports were suspended in the first place.

The incident is likely to intensify accusations that the government is infringing civil rights as it cracks down on the opposition following disputed elections in 2017 and Odinga’s symbolic inauguration of himself as president in January.

The government shut down three privately owned television stations planning to screen the “inauguration” and deported an opposition lawyer in defiance of court orders, prompting rebuke from the chief justice.

A lawyer for Orengo and Wanjigi said they would seek legal redress.

“Once the court has given an order, all those officers who disobey that court order, they will bear personal responsibility for a all that they have done in disobedience of the court order and in further infringement of the rights of my clients,” Willis Otieno said.

Odinga, the son of Kenya’s first vice-president, is a longtime rival of President Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of the country’s first president.

Despite official results that show Kenyatta received 1.4-million more votes, Odinga claims he won elections in August, which the Supreme Court nullified on procedural grounds. Repeat elections were held in October, but Odinga boycotted them, claiming they would be unfair.

THE INCIDENT IS LIKELY TO INTENSIFY ACCUSATIONS THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS INFRINGING CIVIL RIGHTS 3 privately owned TV stations were shut down by the government