Kenya's High Court has thrown out key aspects of a tough new
anti-terrorism law after a legal challenge by the opposition.
Eight clauses were
annulled, including those which curbed media freedom and capped the number of
refugees and asylum-seekers to 150,000.
The government said
the law was needed to counter the growing threat posed by militant Islamists.
The opposition warned
that it violated civil liberties.
The BBC's Maryam
Abdalla in the capital, Nairobi, says that the opposition Coalition for Reform
and Democracy (Cord) party applauded the ruling, saying it had saved Kenya from
becoming a police state.
The government said it
would consider lodging an appeal.
Our reporter says the
court had ruled in the government's favour on some controversial clauses.
These included giving
Kenya's intelligence agencies the power to carry out covert operations to
prevent attacks and allowing police to detain terror suspects beyond 24 hours,
provided they were first brought to court.
The law was passed during a
chaotic parliamentary session in December, following the killing of 64 people
in two attacks in north-western Kenya by the al-Qaeda-linked al-Shabab group.
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