Kenyan Pundit

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BY SHAILJA PATEL

A brief update on our progress so far in the civil society campaign against escalating state and police violence in Kenya. For background, please see the statement titled: “Kenya: Investigate Police Brutality”, at the bottom of this email.

Triumphs

(1)
Three hours after we rolled out the Direct Action campaign yesterday, Prime Minister Raila Odinga encountered Ann Njogu (lawyer who was beaten and sexually assaulted by police on July 8th) at the office of a foreign ambassador and said “Ann, I didn’t know what had happened - I just learned by sms!”

Our scepticism about his “ignorance” aside, this is an amazingly quick result on our direct action strategy. Odinga asked Ann Njogu to deliver the civil society Memorandum on Police Violence to his office, where she was cordially received. We will seize this opportunity to request that Odinga meet civil society representatives for a serious discussion on escalating police violence, and his responsibility to stop it.

(2)
The court hearing in Kibera on Tuesday, of Ann Njogu and Others vs. Republic of Kenya, was attended by Officer Richard Mugwai, the senior police officer who sexually assaulted Ann Njogu and led the beating of all 7 activists. After the hearing, he beckoned over Omtatah Okoiti, one of the 7 activists (whose face is still marked from Mugwai’s violent attack), and said “Please do not deal with me as an individual. Please deal with the police force.”

This tells us that our strategy of naming individual police officers who violate human rights, and holding them directly accountable, is definitely hitting home, and will have a ripple effect throughout the Police Force.

(3)
A press conference was held yesterday in Mexico City, at the Global HIV/AIDS conference, to release the international petition calling on Mwai Kibaki and Raila Odinga to address police violence and sexual assault on civil society activists in Kenya. Over 80 human rights, social justice and governance organizations across the world have signed the petition.

Tests
(1) At 10am yesterday, civil society met at the Central Police Station to file the official complaint of police violence. All relevant and required affidavits, medical reports, etc. were presented to the Officer in Charge of the Station. Over several hours, our colleagues were pushed around from office to office, encountered repeated stonewalling, and flat-out refusal to accept and file the complaint. They finally had to leave with the complaint unfiled.

(2) Our colleagues in Bunge La Mwananchi have alerted us to ongoing police violence against street children, including the horrific shooting of 6 street children in South B on Tuesday. (See my earlier posting to the listserve on this). It is important that we link all these cases and address the overarching issue of police violence at all levels and sectors of society.

(3) In court on Tuesday, we observed that police were illegally frustrating free expression even within the court, which is under the magistrate’s jurisdiction. Shailja Patel was told, arbitrarily, to remove her cap. The same order was not given to others in the courtroom also wearing hats. During the hearing of our case, a policeman told Shailja Patel to stop taking notes. Counsel Haroun Ndubi later advised that both police actions are illegal in an open courtroom, where the guiding principle is that justice should not only be done but be SEEN to be done. For future reference, if other civil society members experience similar harassment in an open courtroom, they should alert the nearest lawyer or call attention to matter in court, so police are advised on how to behave.

Tactics

(1) In court on Tuesday, our counsels, Martin Oloo and Haroun Ndubi, argued that Section 78(1) of the penal code, under which activists are being charged with unlawful assembly, is a violation of fundamental freedoms guaranteed to Kenyans under the Constitution.

They therefore requested a constitutional interpretation of case in High Court. The prosecutor requested time to study the submissions. The next hearing, at which we will hear the Magistrate’s decision, is on August 22nd, Kibera Court, 9am. A high turnout by civil society members will have tremendous impact - please show up!

(2 IIt is vital that we sustain the momentum begun by the Direct Action Campaign. It is encouraging to know that our message has got through to at least one key office-holder, Raila Odinga. Now we need to keep up the flow of messages, through all channels, until the criminal violations committed are actually redressed, and the culture of police impunity and state violence is dismantled.

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Date: Tuesday August 5th
Time of hearing: 9:00 am
Venue: Kibera Court
Directions: Coming from the direction of town on Ngong Rd, turn left on Mugo Kibiru Road (before Ngong Hills Hotel and Nakumatt Prestige Plaza). Go down Mugo Kibiru Road until the T-junction. Turn LEFT at T-junction, and continue until you see Chief’s Office, courthouse, and government buildings. Parking space available.

Background:
On July 8th, anti-corruption crusaders were ejected from a Nairobi hotel where they were meeting to plan a peaceful protest against the Grand Regency corruption. The police had already been notified of the procession, in accordance with the law. Activist and human rights lawyer, Ann Njogu, was sexually assaulted by a senior police officer, Richard Mugwai, in full view of many witnesses. Seven activists: Okoiti Omtata, Ann Njogu, Abel Omkundi, Ouma Odera, George Nyongesa, Sheikh Ramadhan, and Frederick Odhiambo, were taken to Gigiri police station, and brutally beaten by police officers, led again by senior police officer, Richard Mugwai. The seven were charged with unlawful assembly and released on bail of Ksh. 10,000 each. We are calling for all charges to be dropped, and for Officer Richard Mugwai to be removed from his post pending prosecution.

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I came across this interesting Digital Storytelling Project today (hat tip Bankelele!). The project aims to help the Undungu Society and the street children they work with get their voices heard through voices and pictures. Please visit the blogs and encourage the young authors to keep expressing themselves. It is very rare that young Kenyans (especially the underprivileged) get the opportunity to express themselves and tell their stories from their point of view. An aside: given all the hullaballo around the high school riots, wouldn’t it be great to have something similar targeted towards high school kids - maybe a group blog where they can tell us what’s really bugging them (and for those who think that these are kids that just need to be caned, wait until 2012 when they are young frustrated adults with unresolved issues and anger at the “system” which we all admit sucks and just because we put up with it and “suffered” doesn’t mean that they should - well put Keguro).

AOB: Is it just me or is the Nation revamp a very poor imitation of the Standard one? The site is taking forever to load, I and the organization of the stories is just terrible (where’s the cutting edge?).

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In the last few days Kenyan headlines have been dominated by reports of increasing levels of violence and riots in high schools. Things appear to have reached a crisis point with the obligatory formation of a “committee” to investigate the cause of the riots. According to some news reports, students are responding to rumours that the results from the mock KCSE examinations, which were set to begin next week, will be the actual results used for the end of year examinations since the Ministry of Education & the Kenya National Examinations Council still haven’t resolved the mess that was last year’s examination results. Now the rumours are probably nothing more than that - rumours - but these incidents of violence are reflective of many issues that are buried in the “lets bring back caning” and its “drugs” refrain that is coming from all corners.

First, anyone who has been through the Kenyan education system knows how high stakes exams are for students. For the majority of students it’s an all or nothing affair in order to get into University (let alone get the subject matter of your choice) - most cannot afford to leave the country for other options, or pay for the parallel programs. In addition, many of us grow up with the idea that you’d better do well in school or you’ll end up pushing a mkoteneni (or some variation) being drummed into our heads - education is EVERYTHING and exams have this air of finality - screw up and you’re doomed. It’s no surprise then that there are high levels of anxiety around the mocks and the possibility that results could be messed up again - especially since heads have yet to roll for last year’s fuck up - the message to students…we can mess around with your lives in get away with it (as with many things in Kenya).

Second, and this might be a bit of a stretch, our society has set up the template for resolving grievances that is hardly a good example for young Kenyans…with the 2007 election being the penultimate example. Don’t like election results? Fake them and clobber a few people in the process. Not happy with land issues? Conduct ethnic cleansing (and admit it in public with zero consequences). It’s a problem that starts at home with kids dodging their fathers and wives tiptoeing around their philandering husbands because “uta-do?” and extends to schools where being “too smart for your own good” usually meant your were discipline problem number one in the school, to university campuses where even a slight showing of creativity means “you will never pass Prof. X’s class.” We are a deeply flawed society and bashing guys over the head in name of discipline will not fix that.

AOB: There was a (typically badly written) article in yesterday’s Nation about the legendary “discipline at Starehe”. I wish the writer would have chosen a different headline, because the story is not so much about discipline at Starehe, but rather how having an open environment in schools and building an atmosphere where individual responsibility for one’s action is emphasized is the way to go (instead of banning “perms” and other such rubbish in the name of discipline…can you tell I’m bitter about this?).

AOB2: This nice NY Times piece about the Kenyan tech scene has been doing the email rounds today, lakini couldn’t they have used a different image with the story e.g. from Barcamp or something? I don’t exactly get the feeling of Palo Alto when I look at that image…

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