Spotlight on police brutality
A GLOBAL movement is pointing a spotlight at police brutality, which is rampant in Kenya. On the 30th anniversary of an attempted street uprising against former dictator Daniel arap Moi, hundreds of activists were last week planning to march in Nairobi, demanding police accountability as well as basic services such as electricity and water for the city’s vast slums.
However, turnout was a far cry from the crowds on July 7, 1990, when thousands, led by some of the country’s prominent activists, engaged police in running battles, challenging the one-party state at the height of Kenya’s clamour for a multiparty system. That demonstration would lead to an increased democratic space decades later. Kenya would establish a new constitution in 2010, one whose fruits have yet to be realised.
Last week more than 60 people were arrested by police using batons and tear gas on charges of breaching Covid-19 restrictions on public gatherings. There was no mass protest, just scattered groups, and the organisers were left to wonder: what will it take for Kenyans to push back against police? While protests have swelled in other countries, the pandemic has squeezed some of the energy out of the anti-brutality movement in Kenya.
High-placed allies in international organisations have dropped out of protests for fear of breaking pandemic laws, and police have used a colonial-era Public Order Act to arrest those who show up.
Nairobi’s police chief, Philip Ndolo, said that under Covid-19 restrictions, protests are banned. But it’s not just the pandemic. Grassroots rights groups have contended for years with the challenge many global activists face in getting those not directly affected by police brutality to join in the fight against it. Last week’s low turnout stings more because police violence has seemed so relentless, activists say.
Since Kenya announced its first Covid-19 case in early March, alleged instances of police brutality tied to the enforcement of virus containment measures have come in waves. Rights groups have helped document at least 95 cases of killings they say were linked to police this year. The shooting of a 13-year-old boy, Yassin Moyo, who was on the balcony of his house watching police enforce a dusk-to-dawn curfew, sparked particular outrage.
Despite wins by activists – such as the establishment of a police oversight agency and the rebranding of the police as a “service” rather than a “force” – alleged killings by officers have continued apace.
A mass movement like Black Lives Matter is what many activists in Kenya believe is the only way to bring about real change.
The leaders who would build such a movement, however, face police brutality and intimidation themselves.