The Kenya National Human Rights Commission (KNHCR) is mobilizing a response. They are identifying a lawyer to go to the police station as well as setting up systems for individuals who need medical care after they are released.
The mob violence continued on the Saturday with a KEMRI worker beaten and burnt with cigarette butts. He was saved by the police after a mob member approached him with kerosene but arrested and joins five others in Mtwapa police station.
They will be at court on Monday Feb 15 and further anti-gay demonstrations are planned. Most local gay men have gone into hiding or fled. Because of the attack on the KEMRI clinic many people living with HIV/AIDS will be unable to get their medicines.
Four months ago a Kenyan gay couple married in London - an event which received wide media coverage inside Kenya. There has also been media discussion of an appeal by Kenyan gay groups for protection to be included in the country's constitutional revision.
The Gay and Lesbian Coalition of Kenya (GALCK) accused the media of inciting the anti-gay rioting and said that they would complain to the Media Council of Kenya.
We understand the media especially in Mombasa called upon residents to "stand against the pollution of culture'. In the supposed gay wedding publicised in the media, there are glaring inconsistencies that the media should have investigated before broadcasting the news.
PeaceMaker (PEMA) and Stay Alive say that the mob was not a spontaneous community uprising against homosexuals, but "a much more organized event" centred on religious leaders with the police working
with them when it comes to arrests and breaking into people homes.
GALCK and other partners are considering pressing charges against the two religious leaders and the former MP for inciting the community to commit crime. Lawyers have been organised to defend the six gay men."
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