• Lobby says majority of activists needed change of their residence to be safe, majority being sexual minorities and women.
• To make the support for activists sustainable, the lobby says it has been training them on how to safeguard their safety.
Image: SHABAN OMAR
Many human rights activists have had to be smuggled out of their residences, with some relocating abroad for their safety, lobby group report shows.
Defenders Coalition in its newsletter for January to March says of 40 pleas for protection and support it has received from activists in the period, it had to organise for relocation of 35 per cent of them.
Julia Moraa (not her real name) is one such case. Her friends say she openly talks about lesbianism.
She has been using her social media platforms to chronicle her sexuality journey and why she chose to go against the grain, her friend Willis Wanjiru says.
But in December, she started receiving threats from unknown callers, warning her that she had to move from the neighbourhood because she was influencing young girls into the lifestyle.
"The threats persisted and someone helped her link up with the Defenders Coalition," Wanjiru says.
According to the lobby, members of and activists for LGBTQ lifestyles are the worst hit by the threats and insecurity, forcing them to seek help for changing their residences or relocation.
From the 40 pleas, 16 were related to LGBTQ activism. Thirteen were women activists while 11 were men.
The data show 26 per cent of the pleas from the activists were seeking help in paying bail and bond for those arrested.
Twenty-three per cent needed the lobby to hire lawyers to argue for their freedom in court. Seven per cent wanted help in meeting medical bills. Most activists in need of help in paying their health bills have been brutalised during protests.
Five per cent and four per cent needed psychological and security support, respectively.
The lobby says there has been a prevailing environment of hostility towards human rights defenders including journalists, indigenous community rights activists and environment and land activists.
Other are activists working in the counties voicing concerns of excesses of local administrations and sexual minority activists.
Also affected are activists exercising their rights to peaceful protests, with police and political actors colluding to pose threats to their personal safety and that of their families.
“During this reporting period, the prevailing hostile operating environment continued to affect the work of human rights defenders specifically while exercising the freedom of peaceful assembly, which came under heavy attack,” the report says.
“Law enforcement responded with arbitrary arrests and detention as a weapon to neuter human right defenders voices. Sexual minority human rights defenders also continued to face attacks, which has been a looming trend since the beginning of the year.”
To make the support for activists sustainable, the lobby says it has been training them on how to safeguard their safety.