KAMPALA: Kenya’s opposition leader was targeted in a virulent online campaign created by a US-based company during the recent election turmoil, a privacy watchdog said Thursday, while another rights group reported multiple gang-rapes by men in uniform in opposition strongholds.
The reports highlight the volatility of the months during which the Supreme Court nullified the re-election of President Uhuru Kenyatta and ordered a new vote that opposition leader Raila Odinga boycotted and Kenyatta won. Anger remains high among Odinga supporters; scores were killed in clashes with security forces.
The data-driven social media campaigns allegedly created by Texas-based Harris Media contributed to one of the most divisive votes in the East African nation’s history, the London-based Privacy International said. One campaign attacked Odinga and the other praised Kenyatta, both on behalf of the president’s re-election campaign.
The campaign against Odinga included a claim that he would “remove whole tribes” if elected, the report said. Voting in Kenya is often along ethnic lines, and previous elections have led to deadly violence.
The social media campaigns “relied on ad words in Google search and apparently targeted advertising on a range of social media platforms,” the report said. “This raises serious concerns about the role and responsibility of companies working for political campaigns in Kenya’s volatile political climate ... It also highlights the risks inherent to voter profiling and micro-targeting in a country with no data protection laws.”
The report does not allege any crime was committed. Harris Media did not claim responsibility for the campaigns, the report said. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The separate report by Human Rights Watch described rapes of men and women and cited victims and witnesses in the slums of the capital, Nairobi, and the opposition strongholds of Kisumu and Bungoma.
“Some were raped in the presence of family members, including young children,” the report said. “Most women said they were raped by policemen or men in uniform, many of whom carried guns, batons, tear gas canisters, whips, and wore helmets and other anti-riot gear.”
In at least one case a girl died after being raped, said Human Rights Watch, which accused Kenya’s government of often ignoring election-related sexual violence.
Kenya’s police chief Joseph Boinnet rejected the allegations in the report as “utter falsehoods” and challenged Human Rights Watch to produce evidence.
Rapes, other new allegations in Kenya’s election unrest
Rapes, other new allegations in Kenya’s election unrest
Immigration judge denies bond for Tufts University student from Turkiye, her lawyers say
The lawyers asked the judge to order her to be brought to the state by Friday
VERMONT, USA: An immigration judge denied bond for a Tufts University student from Turkiye who has been detained by authorities in Louisiana for three weeks over what her lawyers say is apparent retaliation for an op-ed piece she co-wrote in the student newspaper.
Meanwhile, Rumeysa Ozturk’s lawyers filed a new request with a federal judge in Vermont considering whether to take jurisdiction of her detention case. The lawyers asked the judge to order her to be brought to the state by Friday and hold a hearing next week. They said that would allow better communication with her legal team and a doctor to evaluate her. They say Ozturk has suffered five asthma attacks in detention.
Lawyers for Ozturk, 30, had asked an immigration judge that she be released on bond as her immigration case proceeds. That judge denied her request Wednesday, the same day Ozturk had a hearing, they said in a statement released Thursday morning.
The Department of Homeland Security presented one document to support their opposition to Ozturk’s bond request: a one-paragraph State Department memo revoking her student visa, her lawyers said in the new court filing.
The memo says that Ozturk’s visa was revoked on March 21 following an assessment that she had been involved in associations ”‘that may undermine US foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization’ including co-authoring an op-ed that found common cause with an organization that was later temporarily banned from campus.”
Ozturk’s lawyers said the immigration judge denied bond based on the “untenable conclusion that Ms. Ozturk was both a flight risk and a danger to the community.”
Messages seeking comment Thursday were emailed to the department and to ICE.
Ozturk, a doctoral student studying child development, was taken by immigration officials as she walked along a street in the Boston suburb of Somerville on March 25. After being taken to New Hampshire and then Vermont, she was put on a plane the next day and moved to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Basile, Louisiana.
Ozturk is among several people with ties to American universities whose visas were revoked or have been stopped from entering the US after they were accused of attending demonstrations or publicly expressed support for Palestinians. A Louisiana immigration judge has ruled that the US can deport Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil based on the federal government’s argument that he poses a national security risk.
Ozturk’s lawyers are challenging the legal authority for ICE’s detention. They also have asked US District Judge William Sessions in Vermont, where her detention case was transferred after lawyers first petitioned for her release in Massachusetts, to take jurisdiction of it and release her.
Sessions, who held a hearing Monday, has not ruled yet.
“The government’s entire case against Rümeysa is based on the same one-paragraph memo from the State Department to ICE that just points back to Rümeysa’s op-ed,” Marty Rosenbluth, one of Ozturk’s attorneys, said in a statement.
Ozturk was one of four students who wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper, The Tufts Daily, last year criticizing the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.
Ozturk’s lawyers say her detention violates her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process. They said they didn’t know for hours where she was after she was taken. They said they were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. Ozturk herself said she unsuccessfully made multiple requests to speak to a lawyer.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said last month, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a US-designated terrorist group.
Russia says certain countries trying to ‘derail’ its talks with US
- “There are a lot of people, structures, countries trying to derail our dialogue with the United States,” Dmitriev said
- “There is very active propaganda against Russia in the United States on various mass media”
MOSCOW: Russia’s top economic negotiator said Thursday that certain countries were trying to “derail” Moscow’s talks with the United States, as the two sides work toward normalizing ties.
President Donald Trump has upended US foreign policy since his return to the White House in January, reaching out directly to Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in an attempt to broker a ceasefire in the Ukraine conflict.
US and Russian officials have met multiple times since, including on restoring embassy staffing levels after years of diplomatic expulsions, but Trump’s efforts to broker a Ukraine truce have so far failed to bear fruit.
“There are a lot of people, structures, countries trying to derail our dialogue with the United States,” Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, told reporters.
“There is very active propaganda against Russia in the United States on various mass media. So it is very important to convey the Russian position directly,” he added.
Dmitriev did not say which countries he was referring to, but Moscow has redirected much of its criticism over the Ukraine conflict toward Europe since Trump took office, accusing the EU and UK of being the main obstacles to peace.
Dmitriev’s comments came moments before French President Emmanuel Macron, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and US envoy Steve Witkoff began a meeting in Paris on crafting a Ukraine ceasefire.
More than 130 students in US join federal lawsuit over revoked visas
- The students allege the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency abruptly and illegally terminated their status
- The initial complaint was filed by 17 students on April 11 in the state of Georgia
WASHINGTON: More than 130 international students across the United States have joined a federal lawsuit accusing the Trump administration of unlawfully canceling their visas, jeopardizing their legal status in the country, court documents show.
The students allege the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency abruptly and illegally terminated their status in the government’s Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database, putting them at risk of arrest, detention and deportation.
The initial complaint was filed by 17 students on April 11 in the state of Georgia.
Since then, 116 more have joined them as the administration of US President Donald Trump pursues a wide-ranging immigration crackdown that has targeted foreign students, among many others.
Across campuses in the United States, international students have been scrambling as they have discovered their visas have been revoked, often for little or no reason, according to court documents and media reports.
The Georgia lawsuit names US Attorney General Pam Bondi, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons as defendants and seeks to reinstate the revoked visas.
In the complaint, which does not identify the students by name “due to fear of retaliation,” the summaries offered for each of the 17 original cases reveal seemingly arbitrary cancelations, with each plaintiff giving their best guess as to what may have prompted them to be targeted.
Some pointed to minor traffic infringements, such as John Doe 2, a Chinese citizen pursuing an engineering doctorate at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
He was notified by his school that his visa was revoked after a criminal records check, but the violation was not specified. The student believes it may have been related to a traffic offense that was closed and, according to the filing, he has no other criminal history.
Another of the students, an Indian national at New York Institute of Technology, said he had been found not guilty of shoplifting, and the case was dismissed.
“Over the past week, visa revocations and SEVIS terminations have shaken campuses across the country,” the complaint says.
“The SEVIS terminations have taken place against the backdrop of numerous demands being made of universities by the federal government and threats of cutting off billions of dollars in federal funding.”
The suit also noted that students’ removal from the government database could jeopardize the individuals’ ability to reenter the United States in the future.
Bulgarian government survives a no-confidence vote over corruption
- The government condemned the motion as an attempt to derail Bulgaria’s plan to adopt the euro at the beginning of 2026
- Rampant corruption has marred everyday life in Bulgaria for years
SOFIA: Bulgaria’s government on Thursday survived a second no-confidence motion in parliament in as many weeks.
The motion tabled by the Mech party and backed by two other nationalist and pro-Russia groups accused the government of failing to effectively combat rampant graft and bribery. It was defeated in a 130-72 vote in the 240-seat parliament. The government’s coalition Cabinet is led by the center-right GERB party.
The government condemned the motion as an attempt to derail Bulgaria’s plan to adopt the euro at the beginning of 2026, which would consolidate its European integration.
Contrary to its declared priority to stand up against corruption, the pro-Western opposition PP-DB did not support the motion, citing an upcoming European Commission report on Bulgaria’s bid to join the eurozone as a reason to avoid destabilizing the government.
“Any vote of no confidence before Bulgaria’s entry into the eurozone is not a vote to topple the government, but a vote to stop its pro-European course,” said PP-DB legislator Venko Sabrutev.
Rampant corruption has marred everyday life in Bulgaria for years, with dishonest public procurement, unregulated lobbying, vote buying and property fraud. Tackling graft has been complicated by the state of the judiciary, which is widely criticized for being beholden to the interests of politicians.
Russia’s top court lifts terror group designation on Afghanistan’s Taliban
- The move was a diplomatic victory for the Taliban
- Taliban delegations have attended various forums hosted by Russia
MOSCOW: Russia’s Supreme Court on Thursday lifted a ban on Afghanistan’s Taliban, who were designated as a terrorist group more than two decades ago.
The move was a diplomatic victory for the Taliban, who were put on Russia’s list of terrorist organizations in 2003, making any contact with them punishable under Russian law.
At the same time, Taliban delegations have attended various forums hosted by Russia as Moscow has sought to position itself as a regional power broker.
The court’s ruling on a request by the Prosecutor General’s office followed last year’s adoption of a law stipulating that the official designation as a terrorist organization could be suspended by a court.
