A top decision-making organ of the Muslim faith, has raised fresh fears over the return of enforced disappearances and mass extrajudicial killings.
Shuura Council said 11 people have mysteriously disappeared over the last three months alone. In response, the council has setup a reporting desk at Jamia Mosque, Nairobi, to document cases of illegal arrest, detentions, enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings against Muslim faithfuls.
The initiative by Shuura Council's human rights committee, will compile complaints from Muslim families and all Imams across the country whose members have disappeared or have faced executions.
Abdullahi Abdi, the council's chair, said the decision was reached through a consultative forum between the council and Imams at Jamia Mosque weeks ago, and that it will compile all cases, corroborate with existing reports on the issues and seek legal redress, arguing that attempts to reach out to the government has failed.
"We have several reports of people being picked from the streets and their work places and they disappear without a trace, while others have been found murdered.
Extra-judicial killings had declined since October last year, but in the last three months, about 11 people have disappeared. Surprisingly, most of those who have been taken, are Muslims. This can't be a coincidence and points towards the perpetrators being security agencies. We doubt if civilian criminals can pick people from one area and take them kilometers away, where they are found murdered with their eyes gouged out," Abdullahi said.
This statement comes four weeks after the body of one of the missing persons, was found with at least three others, still missing, weeks after unidentified people reportedly took them away.
Relatives of the missing persons, Muslim leaders and rights group accuse the Anti-Terror Police Unit for being behind the kidnappings and killings. Police, through their spokesperson Charles Owino, have however denied being behind extrajudicial killings and disappearances.
Shukri Mohamed, a 24-year-old Moi University student, went missing on April 4. His body was found four days later, dumped in a river in Oldonyo Sabuk with his eyes gouged out, tongue cut and limbs tied. His body is said to have been dropped at City mortuary by an unidentified police officer.
Abdallah Waititu, a pharmacist at Kangundo Hospital Machakos and an official at Pumwani Mosque, is still missing a month after men "in black suits picked him up at his work place." The men are believed to be from security agencies.
Athman Ahmed Salim, 23, a resident of Umoja in Nairobi was kidnapped on March 20 as he was leaving the mosque with his children, after performing the late afternoon prayers.
He is said to be a Somalia returnee who took advantage of the government's amnesty call to denounce violence and extremism. He was under rehabilitation.
Ali Khamis, a resident of California estate in Eastleigh, was last seen on December 20 last year, as he left his work station at Madina Hospital, Eastleigh. Efforts to trace him in police custody have been futile.
His mother, Halima Khamis declined to divulge details, citing fear for her life.
On Thursday last week, Ahmed Hish and Farah Dagane, two doctors from Garissa who have been on internship in Kitale, went missing. After social media exerted pressure on the government to reveal their whereabouts, a statement was released on Tuesday evening, marking them as dangerous and most wanted with a Sh2 million bounty on their heads. "Some details aren't adding up. They are scanty, a source told the Star.
Already, there are seven Kenyans still held in Uganda prisons since 2010 after they were renditioned to face terrorism-related charges. Since then, they have been in detention without trial in what human rights organisations, have described as a travesty of justice. Attempts to pressure the Kenyan government to ensure they be released or have their trials transfered to Kenyan courts, have fallen on deaf ears.
Kenya National Human Rights Commission, Independent Medical Legal Unit, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have separately documented hundreds of suspected extra-judicial killings and enforced disappearance of terror suspects. The groups in their respective reports, have pointed accusing fingers at the security agencies, although the government has persistently denied any involvement.
In August 2014, HRW documented killings and disappearances, alleging a pattern of extrajudicial killings by police. The body reported 10 killings and 10 enforced disappearances, claiming the number was a conservative figure , as some cases went unreported.
According to IMLU in 2014, they recorded 199 cases of extrajudicial killings and by October 2015, had recorded 97 cases including 85 summary executions, and six killed in protection of life by police officers and Kenya Wildlife Service.
In its Error of Fighting Terror with Terror report released in September last year, KNCHR documented 120 cases of egregious human rights violations, that included widespread, systematic and well coordinated arbitrary arrests, extortions, illegal detention, torture, killings and disappearances by security agencies engaged in the fight against terrorism.
The report documented 25 extrajudicial killings cases and 81 enforced disappearances.
"KNCHR has heard multiple narratives of suspects being rounded up and detained for periods ranging from a few hours to many days in extremely overcrowded, inhumane and degrading conditions," the report reads, saying that many have been tortured while in detention resulting in serious physical injuries and psychological harm as a result.
"The torture methods include beatings water-boarding, electric shocks, genital mutilation, exposure to extreme cold or heat hanging on trees and mock executions and exposure to stinging by ants in the wild and deprivation of sleep and food," it adds.
The commission said the crackdown continues to disproportionately target certain groups of people, particularly ethnic Somalis and members of Muslim faith.
The profiling of people along ethnic or religious lines the report says, constitutes discrimination and is therefore unconstitutional and against international norms.
Other than contravening the Constitutional provisions that everyone is equal before the law and has right to equal protection and equal benefit, Dr Emmanuel Kisingiani from the Institute of Security Studies, said the approach of high-handedness and extra-judicial killings by government is detrimental to countering violent extremism.
"Arbitrary approaches and use of excessive force including cases of extrajudicial killings, is a strategy the government thinks works, because our police officers have been trained to use force, hence their conviction that force works, which is a fallacy," Kisiangani said.
"Many studies and research done, shows that the approach of force has been a key diver of violent extremism as those who have been targeted, beaten up or detained wrongfully, and those whose families members have disappeared or been killed without following due process, opt to cross over with an aim of retaliating,' he added.
He said cases of extrajudicial killings and disappearance was negating efforts in building the much needed rapport between communities and police.
"But it gets worse when government doesn't come out to explain the disappearances or show signs of even conducting investigations. People get convinced that the government has a hand in it and to many, it implies the government might have adopted a secret policy to deal with all terror suspects extrajudicially," he said.
"This is a perfect case of a solution that creates a new and worse problem," he added.
Andrew Franklin, a managing director at Franklin Management Consultancy on his part said it was worrying that the government was ignoring extrajudicial killings, extortions, and forced disappearances from leaders and human rights organisations.
"If there are people disappearing and others found dead, whereas there is no response from government no matter what programs you mount to tackle violent extremisms, the end result will be zero," he said.
"Regularising disappearances and extrajudicial killings has negative impact and complicates the fight against terrorism. It cements and feeds into al Shabaab's narrative that Muslims are being targeted by Kenyan authorities," he added.
Hassan Olenado, SUPKEM secretary-general commented that perceived or suspected cases of extrajudicial killings, undermines efforts of roping in communities in fighting terrorism, as well as hurting the integration program for returnees.
"What happens with such actions is that it drives those who see themselves as victims, to the defensive," he said.
However, to avoid scenarios of returnees relapsing back to violence, Franklin said there was need to have them protected, rehabilitated and given a livelihood.
"On the case of a returnee who has disappeared, to be fair I suspect its al shabaab, because they don't want the granted amnesty to work. The best way the government should have dealt with the returnees, is to train them, give them uniform and guns and send them back alongside Kenyan soldiers to hunt down al shabaab. The tactic has worked elsewhere," he said.
Kenya's counter-terrorism operations are being conducted by a combined contingency of Kenya Defence Forces, National Intelligence Service, Kenya Wildlife Service, Anti-Terror Police Unit, Police reservists, Rapid Deployment Unit, Administration Police, General Service Unit and Border Patrol Unit.
However when reached for comment, the Ministry of Interior and Coordination of National Government spokesperson Mwenda Njoka, denied the government's involvement in disappearances and extrajudicial killings, maintaining that the fight against violent extremism is on course.
"People disappear for all manner of reasons, but for the record we don't have any policy in place to have suspects disappear nor engage in extra judicial killings. Our campaign is based on the law," Mwenda said dismissing the human rights reports on extrajudicial killings, saying that they were exaggerated.
"Some of these reports are written by NGOs keen to fundraise therefore they just put up numbers," he added.
WHAT THE LAW SAYS
On disappearances, Kenya has ratified the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance , and constitutes crime against humanity under international law.
The convention classifies the right not to be subjected to an enforced disappearance as non-derogable which means it can't be restricted or suspended even in times of war or other public emergency. Article (1) (2) states that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether in a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as justification for enforced disappearances.
Kenya has also ratified the United Nations Convention Against Torture (UNCAT), the international covenant on civil and political rights and the African Charter on Human and People's Right, all which equally outlaw torture in all circumstances.
Furthermore the KDF Act Article 27 provides torture, inhumane and/or degrading treatment and punishment by military officers, an offence punishable by 25 years in prison.
The Constitution provides in Article 26 that (1) Every person has the right to life (3), A person shall not be deprived of life intentionally, except to the extent authorised by this Constitution or other written law." The right to life is also guaranteed under various international human rights instruments, including Article 3 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) which states that "everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person", and Article 6.1 of the ICCPR which provides that, "every human being has the inherent right to life, [which] shall be protected by law and [that] no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his life." The right is often described as a fundamental human right. Therefore, states are under obligation to prevent arbitrary killings by their own security forces.
Article 29 of the Kenya Constitution guarantees every person right to freedom and security, including the right not to be (a) deprived of freedom arbitrarily or without just cause. Article 9(1) of International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Kenya has ratified, provides the same rights. Therefore no one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest or detention.
No one shall be deprived of his liberty, except on grounds and in accordance with the law.
Source
No comments:
Post a Comment