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Government committed to human
rights, says VP
Story by
MUGUMO MUNENE
Publication Date: 03/04/2004
Daily Nation - Kenya
The Government is committed to
improving its human rights record, Vice-President Moody Awori has
said.
During Kanu's rule, Kenya’s human
rights record was tainted, he said.
The VP was speaking in his Jogoo
House Office, Nairobi, on Tuesday when he hosted Danish MPs who
have been on a one-week visit to the country.
The delegation held talks with
ministers and visited Coast Province to identify areas for Danish
assistance.
Yesterday, the MPs visited the
torture chambers in Nairobi's Nyayo House with some of the
survivors.
The Kanu administration had kept
the chambers – built with the details of bank vaults in the
early 1980s – a top secret. The chambers were last year
degazetted as a police station and opened up to the public. The
chambers were used in the late 1980s and early 1990s by the then
Special Branch of the police to hold and torture perceived
political enemies of the establishment.
Said Danish Liberal Party foreign
affairs spokesperson Troels Lund Poulsen: "It's a very awful
place and the public should know about it. We should offer you
assistance to keep this place open. Kenya is moving in the right
direction following the 2002 election."
Assistant Justice and
Constitutional Minister Robinson Njeru Githae later told the Nation
by telephone that the Government was seeking technical
support to build a Nyayo House monument.
On the question of prosecuting
perpetrators of torture at the Nyayo House, Mr Githae said it had
proved difficult because no records existed.
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