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NAIROBI. – 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.

“It is not like it is written on somebody’s face that they are a thug armed with a gun.”

Staff were quoted saying the restaurant’s security details were under strict instruction not to let in any Africans in the evening, although one or two “loyal customers” were allowed.

The story triggered outrage across the Internet. Under the hashtag #noblacksallowed, Twitter users called for the restaurant to be shut down.

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. – The Guardian.