Court gives order on Ogieks’ rights

What you need to know:

  • The ruling was made here on Friday by the African Court of Human and People’s Rights (AfCHPR) following a case filed by the tiny ethnic groups against the government, challenging their eviction.

Arusha. Kenya government has been given six months to amend the alleged violations against Ogiek, a hunter-gatherer community facing eviction from its ancestral land in Central Kenya Province highlands.

The ruling was made here on Friday by the African Court of Human and People’s Rights (AfCHPR) following a case filed by the tiny ethnic groups against the government, challenging their eviction.

The Panel of Judges, headed by the President of the Court Justice Sylvain Ore unanimously agreed that the Kenyan government had violated several articles of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights through its plans to evict the community from their ancestral lands. “The Court orders the Respondent to take all appropriate measures with a reasonable time frame to remedy all the violations established and inform the Court of the measures taken within six months from the date of this judgement,” the Court ruled.

During the ruling which attracted dozens of members of the indigenous community from Kenya’s Mau Forest complex the Court also requests the Applicant to file reparations within 60 days from the date of the Judgement; last Friday. Thereafter, it ruled, the Respondent (the government) shall file its response thereto within 60 days of receipt of the Applicant’s submissions on reparations and costs.

The African Court ordered that the planned eviction of the Ogiek community be from the Mau Forest be stopped on grounds that it constituted a home of the indigenous community who depend on it for their livelihood.