Kenya: Citizenship Rights: The Quest for Identification
Published: 10/Juil/2024
Source: The Elephant (Nairobi)
For certain communities in Kenya, citizenship is presented as an issue of ineligibility, and as a matter of national security rather than rights.
By Fred Nasubo and David Ngira
Civil rights organisations and community-based organisations in Kenya have disparaged the new registration requirements for national identity cards issued to communities residing on border and cosmopolitan areas of the country. The new regulation is criticised for maintaining an unfair and potentially arbitrary procedure for ID applications that is similar to what was in place.
For many years, groups like Kenyan-Somalis, Nubians, and Kenyan Arabs have lamented unfair identification and verification procedures, which go against the equal treatment principle (Maasais and Tesos have reported comparable difficulties). Members of these ethnic groups are subjected to a vetting process to prove their citizenship in order to be eligible for a Kenyan ID.
Under growing pressure from these groups and with support from civil society organisations and community-based organisations, President Ruto declared that vetting committees would be eliminated by 1 May 2024. But according to the new guidelines, which were made public bye the State Department for Citizen Services on 29 April 2024, vetting committees have been replaced with yet another bureaucratic process that includes chiefs and security agencies (Directorate of Criminal Investigations and the National Intelligence Service) with discretionary power to grant IDs.
Rad further: https://www.theelephant.info/analysis/2024/07/10/citizenship-rights-the-quest-for-identification/