Kenya

 
 

1. Barclays Bank introduces Islamic banking in Kenya  
[
by China people’s Daily Online]
Kenya has about eight million Muslims. Such banking products have already taken off in Britain, Canada, United States, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, South Africa, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Singapore, Egypt, Pakistan among many other countries.

"The new product we are launching today will be consistent with the Islamic faith. We will set up a separate basket which we will put these funds to accumulate to allow Muslims to borrow," said Mohammed.

 

2.  Kenya Muslims say U.S. backed torture and detention  
 [
by Jeremy Clarke(Reuters)]
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenyan Muslims marched on police headquarters in Nairobi on Thursday in protest against what they called the illegal detention and torture of fellow Muslims in an anti-terrorist drive urged on by the United States. The protest involving a few dozen people followed months of simmering tensions between the east African nation's Muslim community and authorities they accuse of persecuting and arresting them on U.S. government orders. "We don't expect this in our country. Just how much power do the Americans have over the Kenyan government?" said Al-Amin Kimathi, chairman of Kenya's Muslim Human Rights Forum.

   
 

3.  Kenya    [By U.S. Library Of Congress]Population: In 2007 Kenya’s population was estimated at 36,913,721, up from 28.7 million reported in the 1999 national census and from 15.3 million in the 1979 census. In 2006 the annual population growth rate was about 2.8 percent, a rate substantially below that of the early 1980s, when Kenya’s growth reached 4 percent, the highest rate in the world. As of the end of 2006, Kenya was host to some 220,000 refugees from neighboring countries, including 162,000 from Somalia and most of the remainder from Sudan. Somewhat more than one-third of Kenya’s population lives in urban areas, with the greatest concentration in Nairobi. The non-city-dwelling population is also heavily concentrated in areas of fertile land in the center and west of the country. The country’s population density is about 59 people per square kilometer, with extremely uneven distribution.

4.  Kenya Presidential Hopefuls Woo Muslims  
[
By Abdel Qader Anoi, IslamOnline(IOL) Correspondent]

Kenya's two main presidential candidates are turning to the sizable Muslim community in the hope of tilting the balance in their favors in next month's polls, tipped to be the closest-ever in the east African nation.
"For the first time, presidential candidates are chasing Muslim votes, which have become quite crucial," Mohamamd Tig, a journalist, told IslamOnline.net."They are meeting Muslim leaders and promising to address their problems."Last week, incumbent President Mwai Kibaki reached out to Muslims by declaring `Eid Al-Adha, one of the two main religious festivals on the Islamic calendar, a national holiday.
 

   
 

5. WAMY holds medical camp in Kenya  
[
By International Islamic News Agency(IINA)]

Muslims make up 35 percent of Kenya’s population of 30,000,000, and many of them are presently going through dire economic circumstances, and can ill afford the high and spiraling cost of medical treatment.

Dr. Nurwalli said the camp cost SR 65,000 to run, and there were eight specialized doctors who participated in the camp’s project of carrying out operations and giving other treatment to the patients who visited it.

It is one of WAMY’s policies to provide various kinds of relief to Muslims everywhere, including medical relief, and to stand by them in their hour of need.

6.Kenyan Muslims deny Sharia claims  
[
By BBC NEWS,Tuesday,27 November 2007] 

Roughly one-third of Kenya's population of 34 million is Muslim.

Recent opinion polls show 45% of those interviewed support ODM's Raila Odinga compared to 43% who favour President Mwai Kibaki, who is running on a Party of National Unity ticket

 

   

7. Kenya's Muslim Leaders Throw Support to Opposition  
[
by VOA(Voice of America)  News]

Muslim leaders in Kenya say they are unhappy with the policies of the current government and want a new president. That is what the chairman of Kenya's National Muslim Leaders Forum tells VOA, following the group's announcement it is supporting opposition leader Raila Odinga in the upcoming presidential elections in December. Arjun Kohli reports from our East Africa Bureau in Nairobi.

The chairman of the National Muslim Leaders Forum, Abdullahi Abdi, speaks on behalf of 25 Muslim organizations in Kenya.
 

8.  The uneasy life of Indians in Kenya
[by - Nilanjana Bhowmick By littleindia.com]
 
Nearly a generation ago, Pres. Idi Amin booted Indians out of Uganda with his infamous "Asian farewell speech" on Aug. 5, 1972, in which he accused them of "economic sabotage." Within a matter of weeks, Uganda's Indian population had been decimated from 75,000 to under 1,000.

The Uganda crisis seeped into the adjoining East African countries of Kenya and Tanzania as well. Even though they were not under political threat from local regimes, fearful Indians fled those countries as well, halving their numbers in the region in under a decade.