20100119

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya charged a prominent Muslim activist with incitement to violence on Tuesday over riots last week that rocked the centre of the capital Nairobi.

Al-Amin Kimathi, chairman of Kenya's Muslim Human Rights Forum, is accused in connection with Friday's protest against attempts to deport Jamaican cleric Sheikh Abdullah al-Faisal, which degenerated into hours of running street battles.

The state-funded but independent Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) said the government risked divisions based on religion, in a country already divided along tribal lines, through its handling of the matter.

"The government appears to advance the same strategy of profiling persons of communities to pave the way for blanket violation of the rights of members of such communities," said, Hassan Omar, KNHRC's vice chairman.

Kimathi, who was arrested on Monday at Nairobi's High Court, where seven other suspects were charged over the turmoil, was later freed by the court on a cash bail of 100,000 shillings and ordered to return on Friday.

Civil unrest in Kenya is particularly worrying following post-election violence in 2008 that killed some 1,300 people. Given the regional threat from Somali radicals seen as a proxy for al Qaeda, it is even more of concern for a nation that has in the past been hit by two al Qaeda-linked attacks.

Later on Monday, Kenya's foreign affairs minister said the government had secured a flight to Jamaica for Faisal, and that it expected him to leave in two days.