Chinese restaurant owner in Kenya arrested after discrimination claim
The Chinese have replaced Europeans as the colonial power in Sub-Saharan Africa. Many are now nostalgic for the days when the white man ruled.
In Kenya, the largest newspaper in the country ran a front page story about a Chinese restaurant owner who refused to serve native Africans after 5:00 PM. The owner only allowed foreign nationals in after five, citing a string of violent incidents. The restaurant owner was arrested shortly after the article was published.
The incident highlights the growing anti-Chinese backlash in Africa.
The owner of a Chinese restaurant in Nairobi that operated a “no Africans” policy has been arrested after media reports about the establishment triggered an outcry on social media.
Zhao Yang was charged with operating a restaurant without a valid licence only hours after the Daily Nation, Kenya’s biggest newspaper, published a front-page story about the restaurant.
Co-owner Esther Zhao told the newspaper that Africans posed a security risk and needed to be kept out after 5pm. “We don’t admit Africans that we don’t know because you never know who is al-Shabaab and who isn’t,” she said, referring to the Somali-based terror group blamed for a number of attacks in Kenya in recent years.
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Zhao faces a prison term of 18 months or a fine of more than $1,000 if found guilty of operating the restaurant without a licence.
The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights called on any Kenyans who had been barred from the restaurant to get in touch because it planned to lodge a civil suit.