Targets Of State Terror Crackdown Protest With Pictures Saying "Kenya, I'm Not A Terrorist"
Somalis in Kenya — refugees, immigrants, Kenyan-born citizens of Somali heritage — mount a photo campaign to protest Kenya's anti-terror operation, which has targeted Somali neighborhoods in Nairobi and elsewhere.
On April 4, Kenya started house-to-house sweeps in Eastleigh, a largely Somali neighborhood in Nairobi, looking for improperly documented refugees, whom Kenya considers a terrorism threat.
Critics immediately questioned the Kenyan government's presumption that urban refugees are likely terrorists.
"Operation Usalama Watch," as the crackdown is officially known, quickly morphed to sweep up illegal immigrants, also labeled a security threat, and anyone who has an identity card the police consider suspicious.
The operation brings up decades-old tensions between Kenya and its Somali population — including tensions about who is "Kenyan enough."
Many of those whose homes have been visited by Kenya's police forces say they have paid bribes in order to avoid being sent to Kasarani Stadium, where the police hold people until their "suspicious" documents are verified.
Critics of "Operation Usalama Watch" say the the operation doesn't effectively address the roots of Kenya's illegal immigrant problem.
Many Somalis say the crackdown focuses on — and reinforces — negative stereotypes about Somalis and their neighborhoods.
Some consider the crackdown a kind of ethnicity-based "collective punishment" that misses the perpetrators it targets.
And many think the crackdown misses the real cause of the radicalization that leads to terrorism.
