Kenya: Abdullah al-Faisal stirs confrontation  · Global Voices
Njeri Wangari

As on Thursday 21st Jan, the government of Kenya was at its nerves end trying to raise over US$,400,000 in a bid to deport Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal to his home country, Jamaica using a hired plane. This was one of the many failed attempts to get al-Faisal out of the country due to his terrorist nature which was deemed a risk to the East African Country, Kenya.
Just who is Sheikh al –Faisal and why has his stay in Kenya caused the death of a police officer, a protester with several others nursing injuries and countless losses to business owners in a recent protest in Kenya's capital, Nairobi?
Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal a Jamaican Born Muslim Cleric
Born Trevor William Forest to a evangelical family in 1964, al-Faisal left Jaimaica for the UK in the 1980s.
According to Wikipedia, he is a radical Muslim cleric who preached in the United Kingdom until he was convicted of stirring up racial hatred and urging his followers to murder Jews, Hindus, Christians, and Americans.
El-Faisal was sentenced to nine years in prison while in Britain, of which he served four years before being deported to Jamaica in 2007.
On the New Years Eve to the year 2010 al-Faisal was arrested by the Kenya Police at a mosque in the Kenyan coastal town of Mombasa for preaching contrary to his tourist visa.
It is due to his “unjustified’ arrest that Muslims in Nairobi held violent demonstrations last week, Friday 15th January just outside the Jamia Mosque at the heart of the capital city. The demonstrations led to a bloody confrontation between the Muslims, the police and civilians who were opposed to al-Faisal’s presence in Kenya. A policeman and a protester were both shot. They both later succumbed to  injuries while in hospital.
The news of the bloody protest first appeared online via twitter with many twitters in the Central Business District(CBD) giving updates and warnings on the chaos that had taken over the CBD as well as the amount of tear gas that had covered the city like a cloud of smoke.
A screenshot of tweets by http://twitter.com/Mwanikih. The tweets start from the bottom up giving a chronology of how the protests unfolded.
RT @robertalai: Checking out “Its Kenyans against Terror and fundamentalists” on Bidii Afrika: http://ning.it/5hIsIB ~ nice n truthful read!
10:24 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
RT @hilum: AL Shabaab is in control of Nairobi now ama? ~ not for long i can assure u!
6:18 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
RT @robertalai: @mwanikih a policeman was shot from the mosque. We were there. Its religious bigotry helped by akina Al Amin Kimathi #fb
6:16 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
@soleaddict1 Trust me. And they are not a day older than 18 from what i can see. Radicalisation at its worst my friend!
5:55 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu in reply to soleaddict1
Guys chanting ”Kenya yetu”.
5:53 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
Police are just standing by watching with their guns n dogs as 10 kids bring city to a standstill! Shameful!
5:47 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
I see a start of Somali intolerance by Kenyans. Kimathi Street looks like Mogadishu!
5:30 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
This is getting serious, a hooded guy just stabbed some guy n ran into the mosque. This madness needs to stop!
5:16 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
Methinks the muslims protesting are Al Shabab. Teargas is doing nothing for them! Looks like they've been thru some training…#scary!
4:15 PM Jan 15th from web
4
How can my nose be running faster than my legs?
2:49 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
With all due respect, u dont migrate from Somalia to come n start messing with my life. Just saying!
2:23 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
Kwani where's the GSU?
2:16 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
All this for the illegal Jamaican cleric? Surely!
2:11 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
City Market traders have now joined the cops and fighting the demonstrating muslims!
2:05 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
Stay away from CBD, muslims n police in runnin battles. Tear gas in plenty
1:51 PM Jan 15th from Snaptu
The BBC  website first broke the story of al-Faisal deportation from Kenya on the 7th of January with information that he(al-Faisal) was being deported to Gambia upon request after his arrest.
Since then, it has been a diplomatic charade that has left the Kenyan Immigration Minister, Otieno Kajwang’ between a rock and a hard surface.
Abu Nihla who runs a Muslim blog, Muslims In Kenya  posted the news of al-Faisal’s arrest on 6th January under the headline Sh Abdullah el-Feisal is being held by the Kenyan police. He has since written 4 other posts giving updates on the story with the latest being a video calling out to all Muslims to join together in defending the rights of al-Faisal.
Demonstrations by Muslim demanding the release of al_Faisal in Nairobi,Kenya
Some of the responses that he received regarding the Kenyan Muslims protest for al-Faisal’s release were:-
Munir on January 9, 2010 at 7:19 pm | ReplyMunir
50Rate This
Sheikh Abdullah Al-Fasal is a convicted terrorist. Why would peace loving Muslims protest his expulsion from Kenya?
on January 21, 2010 at 12:58 pm | ReplyAlmanurar
00Rate This
That proves that Muslims are not peace loving. They need to change their mindsets so that we can have a peaceful world
on January 11, 2010 at 12:24 am | ReplyTruth Detector
40Rate This
A person who incites others to murder should be locked up. Deportation is too good of punishment for a murderer.
Potash, a Kenyan writer and blogger wrote an open letter to Kenyan Muslims on Monday 18th January in his blog ‘A Kenyan Urban Narrative’
On Friday last, a section of you took to the streets of Nairobi to protest against the deportation of a fellow Muslim, the Jamaican born cleric Abdullah al-Faisal. The Kenyan media, which many of you have accused of fuelling Islamophobia and I am with you on that one, informs me that six police men were wounded in that protest. One of them has since succumbed to his injuries. That policeman was shot, isn’t that strange?
Read the rest of his letter here.
The TERROR FREE SOMALIA FOUNDATION in its blog,  revealed
that Somalia released a song whose lyrics said it would march to Nairobi to make the calculation for what cops do to the Muslims in Kenya there.
“We will cross the border and into Kenya, Insha Allah we are able to be in Nairobi,” said the six-minute duration of the song backed by a gunshot weapons. “When we've got there, we will kill, we have the guns, just guns. Army of God was in the street, slowly but surely, Insha Allah we will soon be there,” the lyrics go.
This is on their latest post Al-Shabaab Terrorist Threatens Attack on Nairobi.
Alex Thurston in his blog Sahelblog gave a rundown of the personalities that shaped the week with the story of al-Faisal and the Kenyan Muslim protest being among them.
A nairobian’s perspective gave his personal take on the protest in his post Muslims Protest the detention of Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal in Kenya on 16th January
Other blogs that broke the story were, Musoma Tanzania, BrandKemistry and Tea and politics
Onyango Oloo gives a personal account of the his experience during the protests, in the blog San Oo Aung’s Blog
As at 6pm yesterday (21st) a Kenyan tweeter broke the news that al-Faisal had just been deported out of the country.
http://twitter.com/TerryanneC
Ok..Abdulah Al Faizal has finally been deported
about 1 hour ago from web
apparently he left abroad a gulf stream jet according to govt reports..council of Imams have called off planned demo's for tomorrow
about 1 hour ago from web
Kenyan newspapers confirmed that today(Friday 22nd ) in their various headlines although  details of his flight ticket, as well as plane he took, are yet to be revealed.
It is also yet to be confirmed that he did indeed, leave the country.