Barack Obama's US citizenship challenged

04 December 2008

A non-profit group called 'We The People Foundation' headed by anti-tax activist, Robert Schulz of New York, along with several other individuals all over the US, has raised questions whether President-elect Barack Obama is indeed a natural born US citizen in order to be the president of the US, as stipulated by the US constitution.

They have also questioned the authenticity of Obama's Hawaiian birth certificate, with the foundation running a series of ads raising doubts about Obama's citizenship and whether his birth certificate is authentic.

The issue has already become a subject of controversy as nearly two dozen cases have been filed in the US courts in recent weeks, including at least two in the US Supreme Court. In some instances, these lawsuits have already been thrown out of courts in several states.

The controversy stems from accusations being made that Obama was born in Kenya and not Hawaii as stated in his election campaign. The non-profit group says that it has in its possession a transcript of a long-distance phone interview conducted in Swahili and English by Obama's paternal grandmother, Sarah Hussein Obama, in her Kenyan home in October.

She is supposed to have stated in the interview that she was present during Barack Obama's birth in Mombasa while Obama had claimed he was born in Hawaii and his campaign team had posted the official birth certificate issued in Hawaii on the internet.

Officials in Hawaii confirmed having seen the birth certificate and have vouched for its authenticity. The original records are said top be stored in the state vault but the authorities have declined to release any more information on the matter.