A government report has laid bare a brutal strategy employed by police officers to suppress anti-tax protests that gripped Kenya in June and July.
The report by the National Crime Research Centre (NCRC) details a troubling pattern of abuse of power by police officers who fabricated charges against protesters to keep them in custody without bail.
The report says officers altered their tactics after noticing that courts were initially granting favourable bail terms to protesters.
To circumvent this, the policemen and women charged demonstrators with serious offenses, such as arson and robbery with violence, instead of lesser crimes like unlawful assembly. By attaching severe charges, police ensured higher bail terms, effectively prolonging detentions.
“During the Gen Z-led protests, police charged protesters with serious crimes to attract higher bail terms, thereby enabling extended custody,” the NCRC report reads.
Some human rights advocates have come out to condemn these tactics as rogue and unlawful.
“This goes to show how low our security organs have sunk, all geared towards frustrating ordinary Kenyans and instilling fear,” said Wanjira Wanjiru of the Mathare Social Justice Centre, a lobby group operating in Nairobi’s informal settlements.
“It is not surprising, especially here in the slums, where the police routinely detain young people on flimsy grounds and later charge them with serious crimes,” she added, describing the pattern as a symptom of a “rogue State out to oppress poor Kenyans.”
The NCRC report also fingers some magistrates for imposing high bail and bond fees which it turn affected the momentum of the demos.
“Another example pertains to recent (June-July 2024) street protests against Kenya’s Finance Bill 2024, where young unemployed people were being granted bail amounts of up to Sh100,000,” the report says, adding that the judicial officers who were hearing the cases did not take into consideration the status of the accused.
Most of the protestors were doing menial jobs and would get freed on Sh50,000 or more cash bail, which they could not afford.
This new report corroborates two others tabled in Parliament by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa) and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR).
The two groups recently appeared before the National Assembly’s Administration and Internal Security Committee.
“There was indiscriminate arrest of children that is in contravention of the Children’s Act and International Conventions,” said Marion Mutugi, a KNCHR Commissioner.
The lobby group said the government infiltrated the protests by trying to buy the leaders off. The officers, mostly in civilian clothes, also carried out abductions using unmarked cars and tortured those kidnapped.
This tactic gave police officers room to commit atrocities without being traced.
An investigator told MPs that those who had been kidnapped and freed said they were held in basement cells.
The victims also said that they were handcuffed and those who took them had guns and walkie-talkies. According to KNCHR, only the police can have the courage to do so freely.
According to Prof Mutugi, it has become difficult to hold police officers accused of atrocities during the protests accountable due to the concealing of their identities.
When he appeared before the MPs a day after Ipoa and KNCHR, Inspector General of Police Douglas Kanja denied that his officers were responsible for the reported disappearances.
“Police do not abduct. The police do not kidnap, police only arrest and we detain in the lawful facilities within police stations,” he said.
According to KNCHR, the government also deployed counter-protesters who were offered protection by the police as they marched while chanting anti-Gen Z songs.
Mutugi said a pro-government group of protestors, using over 100 motorcycles, fuelled at a petrol station along Mombasa Road on July 25 and police never interfered with them.
They were allowed access to Nairobi’s CBD yet the Gen Z protestors were being dispersed from the city.
Activist Wanjiru says the country must deliberately move away from the web of State control and allow for freedom of of expression.
“ It goes without saying that we need to jealously guard our freedoms of speech. When we lose our fear, they lose their power and so we must keep on fighting for our rights,” states Wanjiru.
The KNCHR report also said that some Kenyans who were arrested were not booked while others were held for more than 24 hours before being freed or produced in court.
According to Mutugi, there were 45 children arrested and held together with adults during the demos.
“There are some people who came to our offices and made statements, and on that every evening they were abducted,” she said.
The report says that police were also at fault for their conduct, singling out the teargassing of medics who were at Jamia Mosque, Holy Family Basilica and the maternity wing of a Mtwapa hospital in Kilifi.
“Many of the people that we have interviewed have said they were frisked and robbed of their valuables and money by security officers who arrested them,” Mutugi said.
KNCHR told MPs that Ipoa should recommend command responsibility charges in cases where they cannot zero in on the responsible officers.
They called on the MPs to sanction IG Kanja and then Interior Cabinet Secretary Kithure Kindiki over the conduct of the police during demos.
They want Kanja to provide deployment plans as well as officers involved in the demo operations, their names, ranks and service numbers.
KNCHR said that Kanja should ensure that the commission accesses all police stations for their probe as well as any other information they may require.
From police records, Kanja said that they had received 57 cases of missing persons of which six people were found dead, 22 were found alive and 29 are still missing.
But KNCHR said that 60 people were killed during the demos with bullets.
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