A Chinese restaurant owner could go to jail after setting up a ‘no black Africans’ establishment in Africa.

Darker skinned people are not allowed to go to the restaurant in Nairobi, Kenya, after 5pm because, the owners say, they might be terrorists and Chinese patrons may be scared of them.

‘We don’t admit Africans that we don’t know because you never know who is al-Shabaab (a Somali terror group) and who isn’t,’ Esther Zhao, co-owner of the restaurant, told Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper.

She added: ‘It is not like it is written on somebody’s face that they are a thug armed with a gun.’

An exemption is made for several Africans who are ‘loyal customers’, but this is not enough for most people who say the rule is racist.

The hashtag #noblacksallowed has been started on Twitter in protest at the restaurant.

‘How woud the Chinese feel if a #Kenyan goes to China & opens a “No Chinese” restaurant that allows ONLY Blacks, Whites Etc? #noblacksallowed,’ wrote @Barsawad.

Officials have today charged co-owner Zhao Yang with not having a licence, which is widely seen as a way of punishing him for the no Africans rule.

Yang could be jailed for 18 months and be fined a minimum of $1,000 (£670).