- Some 61 people have been killed by police between January and June 2021.
- Human Rights groups want police to uphold human rights throughout.
Image: CHARLENE MALWA
Human rights organisations are calling on the government to address police brutality and extrajudicial killings ahead of the 2022 general election.
In a meeting bringing together grassroots human rights organisations and the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, the groups expressed concerns over increased extrajudicial killings in the recent past.
Haki Africa boss Khalid Hussein said the three-day meeting focused on finding ways of ensuring every citizen is kept safe during and after the electioneering period.
“We want a safe and secure environment during the campaigns and elections period to ensure human rights are guaranteed,” he said.
“We cannot allow rights violations to continue as has been reported in the past weeks,” he added.
IPOA chairperson Anne Makori said despite many cases being reported against the police, only a few have been prosecuted.
Currently, Makori said the authority has a backlog of 402 cases, which they have forwarded to the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions but are yet to begin the judicial process.
“Our mandate stops at investigating cases and forwarding to the ODPP for prosecution,” she said.
He also added that IPOA has forwarded other cases to the National Police Service Commission to act on complaints against the police.
“It is upon the NPSC to determine what form of punishment befits a complaint against the police,” she said.
IPOA has only managed to successfully prosecute 13 cases from 2016 to date.
“Although those prosecuted are few, it is a breakthrough due to the hurdles we encounter while investigating police officers,” she noted.
Being the law enforcement agencies of government, Makori said, the police are often the violators of human rights as they pursue their legal mandate obligations.
She urged civil societies to work with IPOA and contribute to the transformation of the policing culture and service quality.
“The laws lay down obligations that governments have to observe in promotion and protection of the human rights,” she said, “Though death ought to occur naturally and injuries must not be premeditated, however, quite often, we hear of shootings and serious injuries as a result disputes in the course of police work.”
She urged the public to use their toll-free number 1559 for registering complaints against police misconduct which will assist in investigating cases against the police.
According to statistics by the Missing Voices organisation website, at least 61 people have been killed by police between January and June 2021.
In 2020, at least 167 people were killed or disappeared while in police custody.
On August 3, 2021, two brothers who died after being arrested by police two days before were found dead at Embu Level five morgue.
An autopsy report confirmed that the two; Benson Njiru and Emmanuel Mutura had died from broken ribs and head injuries caused by a blunt object, their autopsy report revealed.
The report invalidates the police report, which stated the two brothers jumped off a moving police vehicle thus incurring injuries that led to their death.
-Edited by SKanyara