Press Release: For immediate Release
Nairobi, 11th June 2020
Press Statement on the Escalating Reprisals, Intimidation and Harassment of Human Rights Defenders Including Mutemi Kiama In Kenya
Defenders Coalition, which is the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders in Kenya associates itself with the global campaign to bring to an end systemic discrimination and police violence against black people, who have endured sustained socio-economic and political exclusion the world over.
It is therefore, abhorrent that in the wake of a global ‘I can’t breathe’ movement to bring to an end police brutality. Police officers in Kenya have not only engaged in wide spread brutality against its citizens resulting in death and serious injuries, but have also singled out human rights defenders for intimidation and persecution.
Mutemi Kiama, a human rights defender and blogger is the latest among the growing list of human rights defenders and journalists that have recently survived serious injuries, unlawful arrests conducted violently, detention and malicious prosecutions over criminal charges that were trumped up. Mutemi Kiama was unlawfully arrested on the night of Tuesday, 9 June 2020 after police officers from the Special Crime Unit (SCU) and Karen Police Station forcibly broke into his apartment. His phones, cameras and laptops were confiscated. He was detained at a police station before he was presented to court late evening the following day.
It is dreadful that officers from the Special Crimes Unit, a rebranded police unit that was historically accused for engaging in enforced disappearances, torture and extra judicial killings attempted to circumvent the lawful procedures by re-introducing Mr Mutemi Kiama to court to seek orders to detain him prior to investigation despite contrary advice from the Office of the Public Prosecutor. It took the swift action of the defense legal team comprising of Hon Martha Karua, Harun Ndubi, Lempaa Soyianka and Mbugua Mureithi and an officer from the ODPP who arrived at Kibera Court in the nick of time, where the officers had sneaked the suspect without the knowledge of the lawyers and sought orders to detain him. The defense and prosecution refused to acquiescence on application by the police to have Mutemi detained for a week as they conducted investigation over an alleged crime of Digital Piracy. The court dismissed the application and affirmed the right of the rights defender/blogger to be set free as the police conduct their investigations. His tools of trade remain confiscated.
The Defenders Coalition condemns this unlawful arrest of Mutemi Kiama. Defenders Coalition believes in the rule of law and the right of the police to conduct their work freely, but lawfully. However, the conduct of the police to forcibly enter a private residence of the defender late in the evening without court sanctioned order, the use of violence against the defender during the arrest, and attempts to hold the rights defender incommunicado following arrest and forum shopping in an attempt to seek favourable court orders to detain the blogger before preferring any charges, demonstrate keenness to circumvent the rule of law with the aim to persecute or humiliate the defender.
These deplorable actions by the SCU police fall in a concerning pattern of escalating intimidation of human rights defenders in the country in the recent months.
To highlight, Collins Ochieng and Samuel Gathanga of Ruaraka Social Justice Centre, were detained at the Central Police Station on 9 June 2020. They were arrested by police officers shortly after delivering a petition to Parliament regarding police brutality within informal settlements in Nairobi. The two were booked in with charges of failure to keep social distance and failing to wear face masks contrary to the directives given for managing spread of COVID-19. The two have insisted that they were not in contravention of the rules and that the charges were trumped up. The two were released from custody after posting cash bail. They are expected to appear in court on Tuesday 16 2020 to be formally charged.
On 12 May 2020, woman human rights defender Ruth Mumbi received a message from an unknown number, threatening to make her “d