At least five people have been killed in post-election violence in Kenya after opposition leader Raila Odinga claimed “massive” fraud in Tuesday’s vote.

Two people were shot dead in the capital Nairobi on Wednesday, said the city’s police chief Japheth Koome, claiming they took advantage of the protests to steal.

At least one more person was shot dead earlier in the day in South Mugirango constituency in Kisii County, around 300km west of Nairobi, during a clash with the security forces, according to Leonard Katana, a regional police commander, the AP news agency reported.
In the southeastern Tana River region, police said five men armed with knives had attacked a vote tallying station and stabbed one person to death.

“Our officers killed two of them and we are looking for others who escaped,” said regional police chief Larry Kieng.
“We have not established the motive yet, we don’t know if it is political or if it’s a criminal incident but we are investigating and action will be taken.”

In the port city of Kisumu, the hometown of Odinga, police used tear gas and shot at supporters of the opposition leader, said demonstrator Sebastian Omolo.

“He is not accepting the results and that is why we are on the streets, but police have started shooting,” Omolo said.
Al Jazeera’s Hamza Mohamed:
Most shops and businesses centres remained shut for the second day in Nairobi as people waited for the presidential results.
On the streets of Kibera, the country’s biggest slum, young men stood on street corners glued to their mobile phones looking for updates.
Everyone is keeping an eye on what the opposition leaders will do if Kenyatta is declared the winner.

Odinga lost to Kenyatta in 2013 and went to court. He lost the legal challenge and Kenyatta was confirmed as the president.
It is not clear if Odinga is willing to go court again.
Kisumu shopkeeper Festus Odhiambo said he was praying for peace even as protesters blocked roads into city slums with bonfires and boulders.

The contest between President Uhuru Kenyatta, a wealthy 55-year-old businessman, and Odinga, 72, a former political prisoner and son of Kenya’s first vice president, has been a hard-fought election that stoked fears of possible violence.

Odinga rejected the partial results of the presidential polls, saying hackers infiltrated the database of Kenya’s election body to manipulate the “democratic process”.
Alleged hacking
The opposition leader said that he could not reveal his sources on how he got the information on the alleged hacking.

In a press briefing that took place in the capital Nairobi, the presidential candidate said his party’s results are “completely different” from those published on the election commission website.

Al Jazeera’s Fahmida Miller, reporting from Mombasa, said that Odinga was alleging that important forms have not materialised from the tallying stations.

“Once the votes are tallied and transmitted electronically, these forms are meant to back up exactly how many votes were given to each particular candidate to validate what exactly has gone on,” she said.
Wafula Chebukati, the head of Kenya’s electoral and boundaries commission, said at a news conference: “As a commission we shall have our own investigative system to kick in. We shall come up with a methodology to find out whether or not those claims are correct.”
On Wednesday morning, the election commission website showed Kenyatta leading with 54.4 percent of the votes against 44.8 percent for Odinga, a margin of nearly 1.4 million votes, after 94 percent of the votes were counted.

The roads of the country’s biggest slum in Nairobi, Kibera – an opposition stronghold – remained empty on Wednesday afternoon.
Simeon Otieno, a 33-year-old father of three, stood near his house looking tense.

“Everyone is staying home. Baba [Odinga] asked people to be calm but it is very difficult. We hope he wins but they always changed the result to deny him victory,” Otieno, a labourer, told Al Jazeera.

“This election is the same as 2007. They stole his votes and that caused a lot of problems. I hope nothing happens but we are all tense.”
Odinga stronghold of Kibera shops are closed. Young men standing on street corners glued to their phones #KenyaDecides #ElectionsKE2017
pic.twitter.com/RlKeHk0gvr
11:19 AM – Aug 9, 2017

6 52 51 21h Hamza Mohamed @Hamza_Africa
Two hours later and the wait continues… twitter.com/IEBCKenya/stat…
Hamza Mohamed
@Hamza_Africa Follow
At the other end of the slum, Nancy Odongo sat in front of the shop where she works. The door, however, was locked.
“I hope this ends quickly because we need to go back to work and feed our families,” the mother of two said.

“Elections are always bad news for us poor people. I have to pay bills and feed my children. I don’t care who wins.”
Hussein Ibrahim, another resident of the area, pointed to the long line of shops that were closed.

“There is tension after every election.

That’s why all these shops are closed and why no one is coming out of their homes,” Ibrahim said.
“No one is going out because they don’t know what could happen next.”
Kenyatta camp denies claims
Raphael Tunju, secretary-general of Kenyatta’s Jubilee party, earlier shrugged off the fraud allegations made by the Odinga camp.
“I don’t expect anything else from NASA,” he said, referring to Odinga’s National Super Alliance party.

“Let’s put it this way – if the results which are being streamed showed that they were leading, what would they be saying now?”
Election officials on Tuesday acknowledged the opposition objection but defended their actions.

During the 2013 polls, Odinga alleged fraud but quelled unrest by taking his complaints to the courts.

This time, the government deployed more than 150,000 security personnel, including wildlife rangers, to protect 41,000 polling stations.

Additional reporting by Hamza Mohamed in Nairobi

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

Israel’s arrests of Palestinians ‘highest in years’

Some 1,268 Palestinians have been arrested by Israeli occupation forces over the last two months.

Israeli occupation forces arrest young Palestinian men outside Jerusalem’s Old city on July 21, 2017 [Reuters]

Zena al-Tahhan is an online journalist and producer for Al Jazeera
26 Comments Israeli forces arrested some 1,268 Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories over the last two months, according to rights groups.

Several non-governmental organisations, including the Ramallah-based Addameer prisoner rights group and al-Mezan rights centre in Gaza, released the figures in a joint press release published on Tuesday.
In June, the arrest of 388 Palestinians from across the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, including 70 children and six women was documented.

In July, Israeli forces proceeded to arrest an additional 880 Palestinians, including 144 children and 18 women.

The rise in arrests intensified after the al-Aqsa crisis in occupied
East Jerusalem , which began on July 14, after two Israeli guards were killed by three Palestinian citizens of Israel , who were shot dead.
More than 550 Palestinians were arrested over the past two months from Jerusalem alone.

“The reason why the number got higher in July is because of al-Aqsa uprising. Israelis started a mass arrest campaign during and following al-Aqsa events, which mainly targeted Palestinians from Jerusalem and the West Bank,” Laith Abu Zeyad, Addameer’s international advocacy officer, told Al Jazeera
“The number is definitely the highest in 2017, but I would [also] say the highest in years.”

According to Abu Zeyad, in October 2015, Israeli occupation forces arrested 1,195 Palestinians, including 177 children and 16 women.

The attack on al-Aqsa came against the backdrop of what has been termed the “Jerusalem Intifada (uprising)”, which began in October 2015. Since then, some 285 Palestinians have died in alleged attacks, protests and raids. Simultaneously, 47 Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in car-ramming and knife attacks.

Following the attack, Israel responded by installing metal detectors and surveillance cameras at the entrances to the al-Aqsa Mosque compound, which was seen by Palestinians as an Israeli attempt to impose further control on the holy site.

For more than two weeks, Palestinians refused to enter al-Aqsa Mosque compound and resorted to praying outside, spurring a civil disobedience movement and international pressure that forced Israel to remove the added measures.

But since the removal, Israeli forces have been targeting Palestinians across the occupied territories in nightly raids and arrests, which rights groups describe as a form of collective punishment and revenge for the Israeli retreat from its position surrounding al-Aqsa.

“Israel’s campaign of arrest, whether it be in times of crisis or times of relative peace, is always a political tool and a form of collective punishment. It represents a premeditated policy of discouraging Palestinian political involvement, and an attempt to stop a people who are pursuant of their legitimate right to both self-determination and basic dignity,” said Abu Zeyad.

“The current wave of arrests has been centred on Jerusalem and attempts to halt the spread of protests and activism throughout the West Bank. Such arrests represent collective punishment against a people who peacefully call for the Israeli authorities to maintain the status quo at the holy site,” he added.

Amina al-Taweel, spokesperson for the Hebron-based Palestinian Prisoners Center for Studies, says the average figure of Palestinians arrested per day stands at about 20 to 25 over the past two months, with some days reaching over 150 during the al-Aqsa crisis.
“Some of those arrested were sent back home in the same day, others after a week, while some others were given house arrest orders. About 70 percent of the more than 1,000 are still in detention,” Taweel told Al Jazeera.

“It has become a systematic tool for oppression, to suppress any political backlash, to foil any attacks; there is not one clear reason for these arrests,” Taweel added. “Any one who has the potential to spur disobedience or to unify Palestinians for their cause is treated as a security threat, so they go after him or her.”

Taweel estimated there were 170 orders for administrative detention last month alone. Administrative detainees are arrested on “secret evidence”, unaware of the accusations against them and are not allowed to defend themselves in court. Their detention periods can be indefinitely renewed.

The arrests come in various forms, but mostly during night raids. “The period from 12am to 3am, at sunrise, is when everyone becomes nervous, especially when there is a sensitive political environment.
The occupation army surrounds the town and raids it. They break into the homes, sometimes by blowing up the entrance if the door is locked, they wreck the furniture and search the house. They usually put the family in one room and interrogate the person they’re after in another room, and then detain him or her,” explained Taweel.

Other forms of arrests take place during crackdowns by Israeli forces during protests or confrontations with Palestinians. Israeli forces, posing as Arabs – known as “mistaarivim” in Hebrew – also arrest Palestinians by assimilating with them in their towns and villages.
Umm Firas, a mother whose son, Mohammed, was recently arrested and released from the neighbourhood of Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem, said Israeli forces detained her son twice over the past three weeks.
“In the latest arrest, they came in the evening for the first time. We were sitting together and they took him from me. They handcuffed him at the entrance to the house,” Umm Firas told Al Jazeera. “They arrested him and took him to court the next day, but found no evidence of anything against him.”

“They come in without even knocking on the door. The way they come into the house is very violent. They come armed from head to toe in a very barbaric way. More than 15 [soldiers] come into the house, each one with their hand on the rifle,” said Umm Firas, describing the way the Israeli forces arrested her son.

“People were coming over to congratulate him over his release – and then they arrested him again – his grandmother was going to faint,” added Umm Firas, saying they also took her 71-year-old sister’s husband in Hebron.

“They don’t want people to defend al-Aqsa.”

Source: Al Jazeera