A news article says that the Kenyan high court is easing its restrictions on church gatherings, and allowing church leaders and crew to broadcast services, as long as they keep social distancing.
“Celebration as judge orders churches to be partially reopened,” declares the headline of an article on the Kenyan website Nipashe News., “The clergy can finally have a reason to smile after the High Court reconsidered their status with regard to the Coronavirus closure directives,” claims the article, published on 23 April 2020 and shared on Facebook., Churches “have been allowed to have a limited number of attendees to broadcast their services, as long as they maintain social distance”, it says., “Justice James Makau on Thursday temporarily allowed broadcasting crews of the churches and church leaders to broadcast their services to their members.”, Is this true? We checked., Kenya’s government has banned religious gatherings as part of efforts to slow the spread of the coronavirus. In early April, three pastors went to court seeking an order for church services to be resumed., The pastors – Don Mutugi Manjau, Joan Miriti and Alex Gichunge – asked the court to allow “alternative forms of worship such as broadcasting of church service … without victimisation and harassment of the broadcasting crew, church elders and leaders and congregants”., But the ruling shows that these prayers were not granted., The judge ordered that “pending the hearing and determination of the application”, with all the parties involved represented, the churches had to use “alternative forms of worship such as broadcasting the church service without breach of the government directives or regulations currently in force do proceed through online or social media or any other form of social platform the petitioner may access”., “This order should not in any way be taken as allowing the petitioners or any party to hold church gatherings or act contrary to the directives or regulations given currently by the government,” the order reads., On 24 April, Kenya’s judiciary tweeted a statement that reports of the partial reopening of churches were “erroneous” and that the government’s ban on church gatherings was still in place., “For the avoidance of doubt, the court has upheld the status quo (the current position) and no church gatherings have been allowed,” the statement reads., The Nipashe News article is false. So too is the name of its author, Renley Baratheon. – Grace Gichuhi, , "A fact-checker has rated your Facebook or Instagram post as “false”. What should you do? First, dont delete!", Click on our guide for the steps you should follow., Publishers guide, Africa Check is a partner in Facebook’s third-party fact-checking programme to help stop the spread of false information on social media., The content we rate as “false” will be downgraded on Facebook and Instagram. This means fewer people will see it., You can also help identify false information on Facebook. This guide explains how., Africa Check is working with the CoronaVirusFacts/DatosCoronaVirus Alliance, a coalition of more than 100 fact-checkers fighting misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic., Learn more about the alliance here., , © Copyright Africa Check 2020. Read our republishing guidelines.\xa0You may reproduce this piece or content from it for the purpose of reporting and/or discussing news and current events. This is subject to: Crediting Africa Check in the byline, keeping all hyperlinks to the sources used and adding this sentence at the end of your publication: “This report was written by Africa Check, a non-partisan fact-checking organisation. View the original piece on their website", with a link back to this page., We depend on voluntary donations to run this site. Please help us to keep public figures accountable by supporting the project., Find out more, For democracy to function, public figures need to be held to account for what they say. The claims they make need to be checked, openly and impartially. Africa Check is an independent, non-partisan organisation which assesses claims made in the public arena using journalistic skills and evidence drawn from the latest online tools, readers, public sources and experts, sorting fact from fiction and publishing the results., , Get a weekly dose of facts, straight to your inbox.
No high court ruling to ‘partially reopen’ Kenya’s churches | Africa Check