State House Digital Director Dennis Itumbi on Monday attempted to pull off a diplomatic hashtag touching on Norway’s decision to continue funding one of the organisations under investigation Haki Africa.
Mr Itumbi started hashtag #NorwaySupportsTerror prompting a reply from activist Boniface Mwangi who defended the organization saying there was no evidence linking it to terror activities.
Haki Africa is a non-governmental human rights organization that was named among institutions under investigation for funding terror activities and its accounts were frozen earlier in the year.
Letters from the Kenyan government to the British High Commission and the Norwegian Ambassador asking them to stop funding the organization prompted a response from the two offices stating that they had not been furnished with evidence that the NGO’s activities are a threat to national security.
The State House man’s tweets seemed to have rubbed Boniface Mwangi the wrong way as he went ahead to state that the matter need not be discussed through the creation of hashtags.
PROTEST LETTER
Itumbi tweeted, “Norway cannot respond to @AMB_A_Mohammed &@ForeignOfficeKE through the media @bonifacemwangi @HakiAfrica @HCCTurner #NorwaySupportsTerror.”
To that Mwangi urged him to use the right channels, “Hashtags won’t help @OleItumbi. Why don’t you let @AMB_A_Mohammed do her job and write a protest letter to Norway?”
Itumbi then added that the protest letter written to them was responded via media,“Kenya wrote a letter on May 12 to Norway @bonifacemwangi @AMB_A_Mohammed @ForeignOfficeKE @HakiAfrica @HCCTurner They replied in media.”
Mwangi then went on and castigated the State House man’s move, “So if Norway replied in the media @foreignoffice @AMB_A_Mohammed gave you the go ahead to start a hashtag?Silly move.”
Mr Itumbi’s statements that the Norwegian government was wrong to respond to the letter through the media was in reference to a Sunday Nation story in which the ambassador stated that the commission will keep supporting Haki Africa due to their contribution and realization of human rights in the coast.
Earlier last week the head of communication at the UK mission in Kenya had stated that the office had asked Nairobi to furnish them with evidence against the organization before they can cut funding adding that there was need to collaboration and not confrontation on the matter.
Source-nairobinews.co.ke
