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Indigenous issues, Special
rapporteur - Kenya
Thematic Reports
Mechanisms of the Commission on
Human Rights
Extrajudicial, summary or
arbitrary executions, Special Rapporteur on:
(E/CN.4/2002/74/Add.2,
paras. 375-379)
The Special Rapporteur (SR)
transmitted, jointly with the Special Rapporteur on torture, a
communication on behalf of one person who died in February 2000 as
a result of injuries sustained during a police raid on a village.
According to the information received, six persons suffered
injuries during the raid, which was conducted by a combined force
of regular police, the General Service Unit and the military.
In the same communication the
Special Rapporteurs requested follow-up information on the cases
that had been previously addressed by the Special Rapporteur on
torture, involving: (a) one death in custody, noting that three
policemen and an army officer had been charged with the murder but
were acquitted, and that the prosecution had appealed; (b) one
person reportedly beaten by police officers during a raid, who
died some weeks later from a head injury which was consistent with
the injuries he sustained during the police beating, noting that
no inquest into the death had been carried out, although the law
provides for it, and that the family had initiated civil
proceedings; (c) one death in custody as a result of torture,
noting that two policemen had subsequently been charged with
manslaughter.
The report summarizes the response
of the government to a case concerning the deaths of six prisoners
on death row in September 2000, allegedly following an attempted
escape. The government stated that an inquest had been opened and
was scheduled to start in December 2000.
Human rights defenders,
Special Representative on:
(E/CN.4/2002/106,
annex, paras. 227-228)
The Special Representative,
together with the Special Rapporteur on torture, sent an urgent
appeal on behalf of a number of members and supporters of Release
Political Prisoners (RPP), a human rights organization which
mainly lobbies for the release of political prisoners. It was
reported that they were arrested at the RPP premises in Nairobi
during a peaceful celebration to mark Mau Mau Day (officially
called Kenyatta Day), which commemorates the 1952 uprising of the
Mau Mau against British rule. According to the information
received, the police used excessive force to break up the
gathering; all the persons named were brought before the Chief
Magistrate at the High Court in October 2001 to answer charges of
"unlawful assembly"; they all refused to enter a plea
and were, therefore, recorded as pleading "not guilty";
only five of the detainees were able to gather the sum required to
post bail (50,000 Kenyan shillings, more than most of the persons
arrested, mainly students or youths, can afford).
Indigenous issues, Special
rapporteur on:
(E/CN.4/2002/97,
para. 107; E/CN.4/2002/97/Add.1,
para. 15)
The report notes that within the
framework of constitutional review, the Ogiek are claiming
recognition as a distinct indigenous minority. The Ogiek people
are a hunter-gatherer, forest-dwelling community of approximately
30,000 people throughout the country, found mostly in the Mau
forest. The Special Rapporteur noted the following points, inter
alia: they have suffered from dispossession of their land,
first by the colonial state, then by the Maasai, and lastly by the
post-independence state; in 1994 the government planned to settle
other landless people in the Mau forest, who were encouraged to
subdivide the land and register title deeds in their names; in
1997 and in 2001, groups of Ogiek challenged the government's
intention to dispossess them of their lands in the courts; the
court's decisions were favourable to the Ogiek, either directly or
on appeal, but the government is still attempting to implement its
decision to excise from areas traditionally occupied and held by
the Ogiek large tracts for private development.
Torture, Special Rapporteur
on:
(E/CN.4/2002/76/Add.1,
paras. 835-843)
The report summarizes the cases
that were sent jointly with the Special Rapporteur on
extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions. The Special
Rapporteur (SR) also transmitted, jointly with the Special
Rapporteur on violence against women, a case concerning three
women who were arrested in March 2000, along with eight other
activists, and held for five days in Nakuru prison, Rift Valley
province. The information received indicated that upon arrival,
the women were forced to strip naked in full view of other
prisoners and jeering prison guards, and beaten with sticks during
interrogation; they were held in a large overcrowded cell holding
39 women, many of whom were ill; when they refused to eat uncooked
food, they were beaten with canes and forced to eat the food. The
report notes that no official investigation had been carried out.
The SR noted that at the 2001
session of the Commission on Human Rights the government had
outlined measures it had taken in response to the SR's 1999
fact-finding mission report (see E/CN.4/2000/9/Add.4). The
government had noted, inter alia: actions leading to the
establishment of an independent human rights commission; the
Standing Committee on Human Rights and the access granted to it to
prisons, police holding cells and all other places of detention;
the pending Criminal Law Amendment Bill (2000); the review of
training programmes for law enforcement officials with a view to
incorporating the principles contained in the UN Code of Conduct
for Law Enforcement Officials; consultations with the police with
a view to establishing an independent mechanism to investigate
complaints against the police; the implementation of non-custodial
sentences; the drafting of the Children's Bill 2000; consultations
with the Law Society of Kenya on the establishment of a
sustainable legal aid scheme.
Violence against women,
Special Rapporteur on:
(E/CN.4/2002/83/Add.1,
para. 54)
The Special Rapporteur transmitted
to the government the case of three women, who were arrested along
with eight others, and held in Nakuru prison (see
"Torture").
Source: http://www.hri.ca/fortherecord2002/engtext/vol2eng/kenyatr.htm
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