On two occasion when l worked with the Independent Medico-Legal Unit (IMLU) - a human rights organization that offers free medical and legal aid to victims of torture, stared death in the face. It will always remain the darkest day of my life, this one, besides; I refuse to buckle and believed that the merciless and cruel gang that brutally attacked and beat me senseless are normal thugs.
In the words of the former United Nations Secretary General, on the occasion of Human Rights Day, 10th December 2003, he reminds us that ‘Human Rights defenders stand in the front lines of protection, casting the bright light of human rights in to the darkest corners of tyranny and abuse. They work to safeguard the rule of law, to reduce violence, poverty and discrimination, and to build structures for freer, more equitable and more democratic societies. It is to them that many victims of human rights violations turn to in their hour of need’, this was an adage from Kofi Annan.
Despite the tribute paid by the former United Nations Secretary General to the action of the human rights defenders, in over 80 countries such action has to content with an ever-increasing hostile environment that is witnessed in Kenya.
In Kenya, for instance, human rights defenders continue to grapple with the obsession of their personal security. The recent execution-style murder of Kamau Kingara and Paul Oulu of the Oscar Foundation and the brutal attack on University students protesting the murder of Oscar Kamau Kingara and Paul Oulu is a classic example of security obsession that confronts the human rights crusaders. This can best be seen in the context of ‘Security- First’ environment for human rights defenders all over the world.
The Oscar foundation has published numerous reports on police misconduct including one on police impunity dubbed: “shielding impunity” which l was consulted to edit. The report outlined the levels of institutionalized impunity within the police force and the failure to hold perpetrators accountable.
In 2007, l edited yet another report on extrajudicial killings by the Kenyan police, “License to kill: Extrajudicial execution and police brutality in Kenya,” published by the Oscar Foundation. On several occasions, the Oscar Foundation handed over its findings on police brutality to Parliament and has testified on extrajudicial killings.
The killings of Kingara and Oulu came on a day of heightened tensions over the February 2009 report of UN Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial killings Philip Alston into extra-judicial killings in Kenya. Alston’s report concluded that, “the Kenyan police are a law unto themselves and they kill often and with impunity.”
It is surface to note that a week before, the UN Special Rapporteur Professor Philip Alston had met with Kingara and Oulu, among others, to collect evidence of police killings and enforced disappearance of alleged members of the Mungiki sect by police.
It’s disturbing that earlier Government Spokesman Dr. Alfred Mutua has issued statements promising to deal with the Oscar Foundation accusing the foundation of sponsoring the activities of the outlawed sect. l wish to state that in the three years l known and worked with mr. Kamau Kingara, he was not a member or a sympathizers of the Mungiki and has never supported the sect. Kamau undertook to offer free legal help to families of the missing persons after the police were implicated in the cases. His mission was purely humanitarian and only involved offering legal aid to the poor irrespective of their religious or ethnic backgrounds.
Contrary to allegation of involvement with Mungiki, Kamau often denounced the activities of the sect and accused the police of failing to use intelligence to confront insecurity and only engaging in selective-executions of the youth.
The killing of Kingara and Oulu should never go in vain and should assert the need for independent investigation and prosecution of those involved with out delay. It should be the end of impunity.
It is my conviction that no amount of harassment or intimidation, whatsoever, will ever deter efforts by human rights defenders to see into a freer society that is guided by the fundamental principals of human rights.
