Bishops reject Muslims as ‘neighbours’

The Catholic Church in Kenya is embroiled in a bitter row with owners of a city restaurant linked to Somali Muslims over its tenancy at a church building that hosts the Catholic bishops’ conference, writes Fredrick Nzwili.

The Al Yusra restaurant has signed a six-year lease agreement with Knight Frank estate agents for a section of Waumini House. The lease was to start in December last year but the bishops are objecting to the tenants, saying the lease was signed without their consent. “We instructed our agent to let out the premises some time in 2013, but not to a restaurant business due to the character of the property,” the bishops said in a letter signed by their lawyer, Charles Kanjama.

The prospective tenants signed the lease without the knowledge of the bishops’ conference, Mr Kanjama says. An unnamed source at the bishops’ conference said the bishops are uncomfortable with the presence of Muslims in their headquarters. In September last year, Islamist ­terrorists stormed the Westgate shopping mall, leaving 67 people dead including many children. There have been a number of terrorist atrocities in Nairobi and on the Kenyan coast since then.

The restaurant owners are claiming discrimination and threatening to sue. “We are being denied [the space] because we are Muslims and Somalis,” Abdul Wahab, the restaurant’s managing director, told journalists on 2 June.

Meanwhile on Tuesday a moderate imam was assassinated by suspected Islamist terrorists in the Likoni suburb of the port city of Mombasa. Authorities were hunting suspects they believed wanted to stop the victim, Sheikh Idris Mohammed, from being reinstated as head of Mombasa’s Sakina mosque.

“Sheikh Idris was at the forefront in the fight against the radicalisation of youth and therefore his death is a big blow to the country’s efforts to stop religious extremism,” Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta said.