A Kenyan opposition politician says he has been detained in a toilet at the country’s main airport since Tuesday after he refused to be deported.

Miguna Miguna was previously deported to Canada on 6 February in a crackdown on politicians who attended a mock inauguration of the opposition leader, Raila Odinga, to protest against the re-election of the Kenyan president Uhuru Kenyatta.

Later in February a court ordered that Miguna’s Kenyan passport be restored and he be given safe passage back into the country.

When he tried to return on Monday, Miguna was denied entry at Jomo Kenyatta airport and plainclothes officers tried to hustle him on to an Emirates flight bound for Dubai, witnesses said. Miguna protested and the attempt to put him on the flight failed.

On Tuesday Miguna’s lawyer, Nelson Havi, tweeted that his client was “currently detained in a toilet at Terminal 2 arrivals and has been denied access to his lawyers”.

After his lawyers went to the high court, a judge ordered Miguna’s release, stating that he was being held “incommunicado”, and directed him to appear in court on Wednesday morning.

Early on Wednesday, Miguna posted a statement on social media saying he remained “detained inside a tiny and filthy toilet” in the airport.

The bizarre incident comes two weeks after a surprise meeting between Odinga and Kenyatta, after which they announced a new initiative to heal the east African country after months of sometimes deadly election turmoil.

Odinga had argued that Kenyatta lacked legitimacy because his initial 8 August re-election victory was nullified by the supreme court over “irregularities and illegalities”.

Facebook video. Facebook video.

The repeat election had a low turnout as Odinga boycotted it, citing a lack of electoral reforms. Miguna was at Odinga’s side when he took an oath as the “people’s president” at the mock inauguration. The government responded by arresting opposition politicians.

In a video of Monday’s airport confrontation posted on social media, Miguna declared: “You cannot take me from [the] country by force … You cannot chase me from my country of birth because you have guns.” The video appeared to have been taken with a mobile phone by an airline crew member.

Kamanda Mucheke, from the government-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights – which had been instructed by an earlier court order to oversee Miguna’s return to Kenya – said up to 100 police officers beat journalists and opposition supporters during the confrontation.

Kenyatta’s government has been accused of pulling back on freedoms of expression and assembly. Also on Tuesday, eight columnists resigned from Kenya’s leading newspaper, the Daily Nation, accusing the government of exerting influence over who can work at the privately-owned publication.



The crackdown on opposition figures, confrontation with the judiciary, and alleged attempts to curtail the media have shocked many Kenyans, who have grown used to a freewheeling media and irreverent political culture since decades of autocratic rule ended in 2002.