On the frontlines of the struggle

Remanded at Industrial Remand and Correctional Prison, Nairobi
Remandee No.: 9554/08.
Charge: Causing public unrest and incitement

I reached the court at 9.05am. Session had begun, unlike previous hearings where the magistrate arrived late, around 9.30am–10.00am. Policeman at the door allowed me to enter. I saw him talk to another policeman, while I was following the proceedings so that I can raise my hand later to explain my cause of coming late. The policeman came to me, asked for my hands and handcuffed me and the person seated next to me. He pulled us and directed that we go with him out.
I was booked at the basement Prison Police Occurrence Book, having undergone a body search. I was locked in a cell for about seven hours. There was no response from any person that I managed to sms to alert my lawyer. By evening we were roll-called. Next thing I realized is that the bus that takes prisoners was parked a few meters at the main door. Inside the bus the seats are tattered, the metal frames exposed. The bus sneaked its way first towards Treasury House, passing Kenyatta Avenue, to the Office of the President, parliament round about to Uhuru Highway, to Industrial Remand & Correctional Prison.

PRISON

Thorough body search while squatting, whips, kicking and cursing. Introduced to ‘Kabaa’, a skit of squatting in a straight line of five, divided in two by three each.

Convicts are sorted out from remandees. Since we are still not convicted, we are treated much worse than convicts. You are judged by what you are wearing; i.e., rich or poor.

We were taken to Block Two. Spent the night there. Next morning we are paraded at open front yard, our details taken. Since I was a remandee, I was posted at block L5, this is a two-storey building with a single entrance, a bit favourable due to its sunlight access or water access. Plus minimal police beatings.

Inside the building it has a church and mosque. Ten dormitories house the remandees; each dorm has 65–70 persons, making a total of about 680 people. Each dorm has a class security person, an in-charge person, utensil washers, and a toilet overseer. Thanks to the MOPA (Movement For Political Accountability), calendars are posted at the wall next to the door in each dormitory, which are very useful for court visitations dates.

Six sanitation facilities. Mattresses and blankets are available but to access them you have to part with KSh200. To get 20 tablets of ‘ARTEI’ (harmful drug for mentally unstable capital offence remandees) is KSh100. To avoid toilet cleaning duties for 14 days you have to part with 50 shillings. To get good food, ‘molullu’, 200 shillings for a week. To buy bread, 40 shillings. Access to phone is 50 shillings. Cigarettes go for 10 shillings. For bhang (cannabis) 20 shillings. To get ‘marry cane wine and spirit’, 250ml is 130 shillings.

To get a letter of recommendation to be taken to Kenyatta National Hospital for a medical check-up – i.e., toothache, an asthma condition, or a mental instability report – you part with 300KSh for the prison doctor.

DAILY ROUTINE

Wake at 6.30am for prayers, 8.30am we get a porridge.

After 40 minutes of taking porridge we are forced back to our dormitories till 10.30am, when we come out to get our lunch, consisting of yellowish kale (full leafs with its stem), no tomato or onion, no fat, uncooked and lacking salt. Meat is eaten only on Friday, the size of a thumb nail with a keen eye of a senior police officer on the server of meat.

‘It’s irony that meat is cut into very small pieces, but the sukuma wiki are never cut into pieces’, says a fellow prisoner. On one occasion in the yard, we counted the kale stems that remandees left behind. We found that out of over 680 remandees, each eating a leaf of kale, the total stems were 740 pieces.

Remandees get a 40-minute outing, then go back to the dorms till 3.00pm in time for supper. At 3.50pm we go back to dorm for the night sleep. At different intervals the ‘mandatory kabaa’ roll-call is undertaken; on a single day we can get ‘7–10 kabaas’ (squat in a line of five).

ACTIVISM IN THE BLOCK

On 18 November 2008, Madam Wanja, officer-in-charge, visited the block with a heavy security guard in tow. I raised the following issues with her:

- Artei – a medication used to sedate mentally ill prisoners and remandees at the capital offences block. This drug is smuggled to old remandees which they sell to fellow remandees, and it acts as opium. It causes a remandee to stay drugged for almost 4 days.
- Bad, stale food; e.g., yellowish kales, lack of salt, use of magadi (bicarbonate of soda) in cooking
- Police beatings
- Phone access - I proposed she place a public-card phone booth to be used by remandees to avoid the persistent confrontation by police and remandees with smuggled phones.
- Hospital access
- Time for prisoners to bask in the sun
- The invasion of rice (chawa) parasites

I also managed to inform and remind her that the prison services regularly invite tenders, through ads in daily newspapers, for the supply of onions and tomatoes to prisons, which the remandees never eat nor see.

This raising of issues somehow earned me recognition and confidence from fellow remandees and some police officers in the whole block.

The day after I raised these issues, three underage young people (one from our block and two from adjacent dorm) approached me. They confided to me that they had been sodomised by the in-charge person of the dorms. One had a severe bottom pain and looked sickly. When I approached the culprit I was met by a hostile gang which protects and perpetuates the said evil. I have written a letter of complaint to the person in charge of prison, Madam Wanja, regarding the remandees concerned details of their undertakings and the dorm in which they are housed.

I have been a volunteer member of St. John Ambulance Brigade, trained as a peer educator, as well as trained in first aid, drug use and drug abuse, care of the sick, malaria control, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis and conflict resolution.

I offered first aid to two remandees on 19 and 25 November at midnight, who had collapsed due to acute asthma attacks (a disorder affecting circulation and producing a strong wheezing sound, and causing the sufferer to be unable to breathe, as well as high body temperature, joint stiffness, and body expansion). Following this, fellow remandees approached me to teach them first aid.

I embarked to teach them simple first aid techniques, including pressure points, first aid for common ailments such as asthma, heart attack, high blood pressure, fainting, shock, epilepsy, food poisoning, choking and stroke. After these teachings, I was invited to different dorms to teach. Through these seminars I happened to meet three people who knew me from Bunge La Mwananchi.

The issue of employment was always in our discussion and teachings. One remandee who knew me as having been involved in the Community Development Funds (CDF) accountability project suggested I teach them about CDF. Having read the CDF community auditor manuals by OSIEA (Open Society of East Africa), I articulated and taught the access and procedures used to get projects funded. This brought me to be invited to almost all the blocks. As you know, news in prison spreads faster than bushfire.

While in remand I happened to fall sick (infection). From 17–23 November, I attended the prison hospital. When requested to have a blood test at Prison VCT (testing centre for sexually-transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS), I totally refused. Not because I feared, but the procedure they are using of group tests was very wrong and unprofessional.

The only good thing in prison is the church. This is where I realised that God exists, from inmates’ testimonies and the sweetest gospel music that is sung in prison for worship.

27 November 2008 was my 14th day in remand. I was brought to court to answer my case, although I did not see any human rights lawyer to defend me. I was requested to answer why I was late to appear in court. I explained my cause and mentioned that I got sick while in remand to date. The prosecutor intervened; he said my response was not convincing and furthermore that the court should punish me severely. The judge sentenced me to two months or pay a fine of KSh2,000 (US$30).

Luckily my family had KSh1,000. Bunge La Mwananchi members contributed a further KSh1,340KSh, of which they assisted in paying my bail of KSh2,000. I got KSh340 plus a heavy lunch bought by Bunge leaders.

During my stay at remand, my family thought I would stay for a long time, as the lawyer had informed them. So they embarked in shifting my house belongings, fearing theft. After my release, I am now facing difficulties, since I don’t have a place to reside in.

Dear all, through these tribulations I have realised that when ‘given a lemon, try as much to make lemonade’. This was my motivation while in remand.

HUMBLE REQUEST

1. Is it possible that I can sue the industrial remand prison for human rights violations (cooking of food using magadi (sodium bicarbonate)?
2. Can it be possible to sue the High Court for unproceedural arrest and conviction? For an arrest warrant to be valid, it has to be taken to a police station for recording, prior to the arrest. This was not done in my case. To make a court case of this will prevent other human rights defenders from experiencing such a violation.

* Patrick Kamotho Githinji is a community organiser with Bunge La Mwananchi. He is currently receiving death threats for his organising and human rights activities. He can be reached at [email protected].
* Please send comments to [email protected] or comment online at http://www.pambazuka.org/.