FALSE: President Kenyatta has not warned Iran against attacking Kenya
The President is yet to comment on the ongoing conflict in the Middle East and its possible effect on Kenya
A Facebook post claiming that President Uhuru Kenyatta issued a warning to Iran that there would be severe consequences if it attacks any of Kenya’s installations or allies is FALSE.
While the post doesn’t say when or where the President is said to have made the announcement, it was shared alongside a photo of President Uhuru Kenyatta inside an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC) vehicle. A reverse image search shows that the photo was taken in February 2016 when the President commissioned the APCs for the Kenya Police Service at G.S.U. Headquarters in Ruaraka.
The claim was made in the wake of geopolitical tensions in the Middle East, including open military confrontations between the United States and Iran following the killing of top Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in a US drone attack.
The attack has led to speculation that tensions arising from Iran’s retaliatory response could affect allies of both countries.
However, the Iranian government through its Embassy in Nairobi termed the claim that it would retaliate by targeting other countries as propaganda. Tohid Afzali, who is the Head of the Political Department at the Embassy of Iran in Kenya, told reporters in Nairobi that Tehran would not drag Kenya into its spat with the US, and would maintain diplomatic and bilateral ties.
In the meantime, President Uhuru Kenyatta has steered clear of commenting on the issue of Iran or its possible effects to Kenya, avoiding any mention of it in his address to the nation in Mombasa on 14 January, where he outlined his administration’s agenda for the first quarter of 2020.
PesaCheck has looked into the claim that President Uhuru Kenyatta has issued a warning to Iran that there would be severe consequences if it attacks any of Kenya’s installations or her allies and finds it to be FALSE.
This post is part of an ongoing series of PesaCheck fact-checks examining content marked as potential misinformation on Facebook and other social media platforms.
By partnering with Facebook and similar social media platforms, third-party fact-checking organisations like PesaCheck are helping to sort fact from fiction. We do this by giving the public deeper insight and context to posts they see in their social media feeds.
Have you spotted what you think is fake news or false information on Facebook? Here’s how you can report. And, here’s more information on PesaCheck’s methodology for fact-checking questionable content.
This fact-check was written by PesaCheck Fact-Checker Simon Muli and edited by PesaCheck Deputy Editor Ann Ngengere with research input from Musembi Mutisya.
The article was approved for publication by PesaCheck Managing Editor Eric Mugendi.
PesaCheck is East Africa’s first public finance fact-checking initiative. It was co-founded by Catherine Gicheru and Justin Arenstein, and is being incubated by the continent’s largest civic technology and data journalism accelerator: Code for Africa. It seeks to help the public separate fact from fiction in public pronouncements about the numbers that shape our world, with a special emphasis on pronouncements about public finances that shape government’s delivery of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) public services, such as healthcare, rural development and access to water / sanitation. PesaCheck also tests the accuracy of media reportage. To find out more about the project, visit pesacheck.org.
PesaCheck is a joint initiative of Code for Africa, through its innovateAFRICA fund, with additional funding support from the International Budget Partnership (Kenya) and Facebook, in partnership with a coalition of local media organisations, and the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ).
