The National Torture Prevalence Survey 2016 released yesterday has some bad news for Kenyans (see story P8).
Commissioned by the Independent Medico Legal Unit, which surveyed 2,400 respondents, the document reports a 7 per cent increase in torture of civilians by members of the National Police Service across the five-year period since the last survey.
Regular cops as the worst offenders are followed by Administration Police officers, a paramilitary force. Every level of law enforcement is featured in this frightening survey: County government officials; prison warders; Army special police squads; private militia funded by the State; the spy agency NIS; and Kenya Wildlife Service rangers.
Physical and psychological torture has apparently become standard operating procedure in Kenyan law enforcement, including in the cells, in homes and at the time of arrest.
The survey does not say so, but the unsanitary police cell and prison conditions in Kenya constitute forms of both physical and mental torture.
This is both intolerable and unacceptable.