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A Kenyan academic suspended for comments made at a conference in South Africa has won support from an international meeting of university teacher associations.

Delegates at the International Conference of University Teachers' Organisations in Wellington, New Zealand, called on the Kenyan government to restore academic freedom and reinstate suspended Nairobi academic Barasa Kundi Nyukuri.

All but two of the 31 representatives put their names to a letter to Kenyan president Daniel Arap-Moi which noted the "ongoing destabilisation of higher education in Kenya", including "the harassment and/or suspension of individual staff members and the active denial by your government of academic freedom of members of staff".

They drew attention to the suspension of Mr Nyukuri by the principal of the University of Nairobi "on spurious grounds". It is understood that Mr Nyukuri was suspended on half pay for comments at a conference in South Africa deemed to have brought Nairobi University into disrepute.

It called on the president to restore urgently to einstate unconditionally Mr Nyukuri, and others who had been suspended.