Kenya Must Stop Organized Harassment Of Human Rights Defenders – UN Expert
New York, Apr 7 2009 1:10PM Kenyan law enforcement agencies have systematically harassed and intimidated human rights
defenders, a United Nations independent expert said, expressing outrage at threats made against those who have
cooperated with the world body.
“Dozens of prominent and respected human rights defenders have been targeted in a blatant campaign designed to silence
individual monitors and instil fear in civil society organizations at large,” with many rights defenders having been
forced into hiding or exile, said Philip Alston, the Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial Executions.
The Kenyan police and military are violating the most basic rules governing the treatment of the world body’s
fact-finding missions, he underscored.
“Non-cooperation with a UN mission is one thing, but making threats against those that have provided information to the
UN, as well as harassing their families, is quite another,” the expert stressed.
Last month, Oscar Kamau Kingara, founder of the Oscar Foundation Free Legal Aid Clinic, along with a co-worker, was
gunned down in Nairobi, one week after meeting with Mr. Alston.
Mr. Kingara’s foundation had provided testimonies of family members of people who had been allegedly killed by police to
the Special Rapporteur and, in 2007, had published a report entitled “License to Kill – Extrajudicial Executions and
Police Brutality in Kenya.”
According to Mr. Alston, the Government has accused the Oscar Foundation of having close links to a criminal gang, the
Mungiki.
“We try to take every possible precaution to ensure the security of those that we speak with. At the end of the day if
you have a very determined and ruthless group that is going to punish and intimidate these people, there isn’t much that
can be done,” he said.
The expert noted today that “all indications seem to point to the face that the campaign has been carefully coordinated
within the Government,” with people from a range of civil society groups having been targeted, threatening telephone
messages having been left for many prominent public figures and security forces having frequently visited and threatened
family members of defenders who have fled.
President Mwai Kibaki, Internal Security Minister George Saitoti and others who control the security have not spoken out
against the intimidation of the rights defenders, Mr. Alston noted, and there have been no substantive responses to
complaints lodged by the UN.
The expert – who, like all UN Special Rapporteurs, reports to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council in an unpaid,
independent capacity – called on the Kenyan Government to immediately publicly order the police and military to end the
intimidation and harassment of the defenders.
“The international community can not stand by as Kenya responds to findings highlighting human rights violations by
unleashing an attack on those struggling to document and respond to such violations,” he said.
ENDS