New report wants donors to suspend support for anti-terror police

NAIROBI, KENYA: A global human rights organisation has called for International donors to  suspend their support worth millions of shillings  to the Anti-terrorism police and other security forces responsible for human rights violations in Kenya.

In its report released today, Human Rights Watch said it has found evidence that allegedly links the police unit to extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances of crime suspects in the country as well as arbitrary arrests and mistreatment of terrorism suspects in detention.

The Human rights body has now called on the Kenyan authorities to urgently investigate alleged killings, disappearances, and other abuses by the police and hold those responsible to account.

“Kenyan counter-terrorism forces appear to be killing people right under the noses of top government officials, major embassies, and the United Nations,” said Leslie Lefkow, deputy Africa director. “This horrendous conduct does not protect Kenyans from terrorism – it simply undermines the rule of law.”

In research conducted in Kenya between November 2013 and June 2014, Human Rights Watch said it has  documented at least 10 cases of killings, 10 cases of enforced disappearances, and 11 cases of mistreatment or harassment of terrorism suspects in which there is strong evidence of the counter-terrorism unit’s involvement, mainly in Nairobi since 2011.

Based on 22 interviews with family members, victims, witnesses, journalists, lawyers, imams, police officers, and terrorism suspects in Nairobi’s Majengo neighborhood, researchers found that suspects were shot dead in public places, abducted from vehicles and courtrooms, beaten badly during arrest, detained in isolated blocks, and denied contact with their families or access to lawyers.

 In some cases, members of the anti-riot forces known as the General Service Unit (GSU), military intelligence, and National Intelligence Service (NIS) were also implicated in abuses by the counter terrorism unit.

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The ATPU was created within the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) in 2003 in response to the attacks on the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998 and on an Israeli-owned Mombasa hotel in 2002. Terrorist attacks have increased in Kenya in recent years, particularly after Kenya sent its military into neighboring Somalia in October 2011.

There were at least 70 grenade and gun attacks in Nairobi, Mombasa, and Garissa between 2011 and 2014, with at least 30 attacks in 2012 alone, according to the US embassy. In September 2013, gunmen believed to be affiliated with the Somalia-based militant Islamist group Al-Shabaab attacked the affluent Westgate Mall in Nairobi, killing 67 people and injuring hundreds.