Kenya: Statement on violence involving citizens and law enforcement agencies

Press Release, 25 January 2011

The Usalama Reforms Forum is alarmed by the increasing spate of violence involving uniformed officers and civilians. Recent shocking actions involving assault of police officers by civilians and extra-judicial killings by the police are particularly concerning.

The execution of three people by police officers last week has shown the world what Kenyans know is still happening all too often in their country – that impunity still reigns particularly among the law enforcement agencies. It has shown that the arrival of the new Constitution and the moves made so far toward police reform are not nearly enough to put a stop to extra-judicial killings and the system that allows police to act outside the law. It has shown that, even since the call from the UN’s Philip Alston and the Ransley Commission in 2009 for moves to bring an end to these kinds of actions by security forces in Kenya, not much has changed on the ground. Certainly not enough to make sure that police do not behave like this, and that if they do, certainly not enough to make sure that there are swift and definite processes and consequences.

The results are all evident. When police officers are increasingly conducting their affairs outside of the law, demand bribes and block the public’s quest for fair administrative action, restiveness and violent reaction by citizens towards the police become the norm rather than the exception.

The Usalama Reform Forum condemns all acts of unlawful violence and extrajudicial killings by police officers in this country the same way it condemns violence by citizens directed at officers on duty.

Usalama supports the actions of the police service and the government in ensuring that the officers in question in this incident were immediately identified and suspended from duty. This is however not sufficient. Usalama demands that an immediate and open inquiry be launched and these officers be immediately arrested pending further investigations.

Usalama will be watching this case and urges the government to follow through on its promises to properly an promptly investigate this slaying and prosecute those responsible.

Further, Usalama calls on the government to immediately and urgently work with the Police Reform Implementation Commission and Parliament to ensure that the Independent Policing Oversight Authority is brought into being.

These latest killings bring into sharp focus the dire need for a mechanism in Kenya that is responsible for investigating such incidents. Such an Authority is needed to ensure that an incident like this is immediately reported and investigated by a statutory body independent of government, the police and any other interest groups. These kinds of situations demand transparency and a process that Kenyans can be certain of.

The legislation for an Independent Policing Oversight Authority is in draft form. Stakeholders including the police, human rights organisations, government and civil society have been consulted and their inputs given. Now is the time, more than ever, for the government, Parliament and the Committee to work together to pass the legislation and establish the Authority.

Usalama calls on those responsible to make this the absolute priority of the police reform process, and to recognise that the only way to bring an end to this barbaric practice and to start building trust with the community is to create and support a robust, fully-independent and powerful Police Oversight Authority.

Meanwhile, Usalama urges the public desist from preventing, obstructing, assaulting or attacking any officer carrying out their lawful duties under whatever circumstances

On its own motion, and in the intervening period before the IPOA is established, Usalama Forum has launched a “Policing Accountability Monitor” to track how police and members of the public are being held accountable for the violence they subject Kenyans to.

Notes: Usalama reforms forum is a coalition of national, regional and international civil society organization focusing on security sector reforms in Kenya. Members of the usalama Forum include, among others, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, WorldVision, Eastern Africa Institute of Security Studies, Research Triangle Africa, PeaceNet-Kenya, Socio-Economic Rights Foundation and the African Policing Civilian Oversight Forum amongst a host of other agencies.

Since inception in 2008, Usalama Forum has partnered with key reform agencies in Kenya to set the agenda for reforms and make substantive drafting input into the Independent Policing Oversight Authority Bill is now making a technical input into the National Police Service Bill.