The UN Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Arbitrary or Summary Executions released a preliminary report in February that accuses the Kenyan police of “systematic, widespread, and carefully planned extrajudicial executions undertaken on a regular basis”. The report is quite damning as the Rapporteur alleges to have received “detailed and convincing reports of countless individual killings.” He goes on to assert that “It is clear from the many interviews that I conducted that the police are free to kill at will. Sometimes they do so for reasons of a private or personal nature. Sometimes they kill in the context of extortion, or of a ransom demand. Often they kill in the name of crime control, but in circumstances where they could readily make an arrest.”
The Kenyan governed dismissed the report out of hand asserting that it “…finds it inconceivable that someone who has been in the country for less than ten days can purport to have conducted comprehensive and accurate research on such a serious matter, as to arrive at the recommendations he made.” This is ridiculous and besides the point. There are human rights activists in Kenya who have been making these allegations for a while and there has been movement on the part of the government to investigate. A BBC reporter who went along with Kenyan police on a ‘raid’ last year spoke of hearing gun fire from the home the police was investigating and observing the police emerge with bodies in bodybags.
One of the human rights organizations in Kenya that has made similar accusations is the Oscar Foundation. Founded by Oscar Kamau Kingara, the foundation provides legal aid to the poor in Kenya. Last year the Oscar Foundation issued a report accusing the police of having kidnapped or killed over 500 people in its attempt to curb the activities of a criminal gang, Mungiki. CNN reports that Kangara and a colleague were gun downed while driving near state house, home of the Kenyan president, last evening.
The killings sparked student protests which resulted in the police fatally shooting one student. Initial suspicion points to the Kenyan police, especially because Kangara and his colleague colloborated with the Rapporteur on his scathing report.
It is not enough that laws are written and published. Many countries have excellent laws on the books. Take Pakistan, its constitution provides for certain inalienable rights for Pakistani citizens, but go tell that to young girls in Swat valley. The test is in the application of law. Is there recourse for citizens against infringements by the state? Are law enforcement personnel held accountable for their actions? The presumption of innocence is fundamental to the rule of law because circumstantial evidence sometimes implicates the innocent. There is no greater travesty in the execution of justice than punishing the innocent. That is a perversion. And it appears that this perversion has become the status quo among law enforcement officers in Kenya. This can’t stand.
