Speak up! Raila calls out 'silent' envoys over alleged police brutality

Azimio leader Raila Odinga has called out the international community in the country for remaining silent in the face of government brutality against opposition supporters.

Raila claimed the government planned and killed Azimio supporters in Nyanza and likened the killings to the German Holocaust where Jews were targeted and killed en mass.

"You are profiling a community, you want to use the same, same tactic that was used by Hitler in Germany. This is what is happening in Kenya and we want the international community to take note of what is happening here," Raila said.

He was speaking on Friday during the interdenominational prayer service for people who died during anti-government protests in July.

The service was held at the Jaramogi Oginga Odinga park in Bondo town and attended by a bevvy of Azimio leaders including Kalonzo Musyoka, Martha Karua, Eugene Wamalwa, Wycliffe Oparanya and George Wajackoyah.

Raila expressed regret that despite some of the victims of police brutality being as young as 14 years, the diplomatic community has remained silent.

"This is something that is completely unacceptable and we want the international community to stand with Kenya," Raila said.

"We are saddened to see that the diplomatic community residing in Kenya are silent when fundamental rights of Kenyan people are being violated by this regime."

On July 18, Western diplomats called for an urgent intervention to avert further destruction of property and excessive use of force by police in crowd control 

The missions of Australia, Canada, Danish, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine and the UK said in a joint statement that they were concerned by the high levels of violence including the use of live bullets during the protests.

"We recognise the daily hardship faced by many Kenyans and urge all parties to table their concerns through meaningful dialogue and resolve their differences peacefully to build the nation together, ensuring no further loss of life," the missions said.

Raila said Azimio "would like the international community to come out strong on this issue". 

The government has since absolved the police from alleged extrajudicial killings during the protests held between July 19 and 21.

Interior CS Kithure Kindiki accused civilian arms holders -both licensed and unlicensed - of allegedly supplying organisers of the protests with guns for use on protesters and the blame laid on the police.

"The architects of this false and distorted narrative bear the greatest responsibility for planning, financing and executing heinous crimes resulting in death and injury of civilians and law enforcement officers and massive destruction of private and public property during the past few weeks," Kindiki said in a statement on July 25.

"Furthermore, it has been established that licensed and unlicensed civilian firearms supplied by the masterminds of the recent violence were used to kill or injure civilians and security personnel, and the blame shifted to security officers," he added.

Azimio has since lodged a case at the International Criminal Court in The Hague over the alleged police brutality against protesters.

The office of the court's prosecutor confirmed receipt of the case.

"Under Article 15 of the Rome Statute, any individual or group may send information (which the ICC refers to as “communications”) on alleged crimes to the ICC Prosecutor, who is duty bound to protect the confidentiality of the information received," the office of the prosecutor public information unit said in a communique on August 8.

"The Office of the Prosecutor therefore does not comment on such communications, beyond confirming receipt of such communication if the sender has made that fact public. In this instance, we can confirm that we have received a communication as the sender has made that fact public,” it stated.