Kenyan group bans broadcasts

Nairobi:  A group of clerics in northeastern Kenya said on Monday it was cracking down on public broadcasts of soccer and films because it feared young Kenyan Muslims were shunning Islamic traditions.

The group based in the town of Mandera on the border with Somalia said it had also put pressure on local administrators to back their television bans in a soccer-mad nation eagerly awaiting the World Cup in South Africa.

"If we come to a place where movies or watching football goes on we simply take everything and destroy the disc and repay the owners. We have now succeeded in 10 places," Shaikh Daud Shaikh Mahmoud, head of the group said.

"We will not stop until we have destroyed totally all the cinemas showing movies and football in this area," he said by phone from Mandera.

Kenya said such bans could never be enforced legally.

"This is a secular country so our people have the freedom to do whatever they want within the law, which includes watching football," government spokesman Alfred Mutua said.

"On our side of the border is a nation of law and order where there is no legal restriction on showing football."

The region of Somalia that borders Kenya is largely controlled by the Al Qaida-linked Al Shabab group, a rebel militia which enforces a harsh version of Sharia law that includes banning school bells and music on radios.

The Kenyan group denied any link to Al Shabab.