Nation outraged by killing of human rights activists

By Joseph Murimi and David Ochami

The shocking murder of human rights activist Oscar Kamau King’ara has turned the spotlight on his NGO — The Oscar Foundation.

King’ara was shot in broad daylight on Thursday alongside Paul Oulu, a former student leader and the NGO’s communications and advocacy officer.

The killings have been widely condemned and propelled the little known NGO to the national limelight. King’ara, who was also a lawyer, founded Oscar Foundation in 1998.

Born in 1971, he is survived by his wife, Nancy Wangeci Munene and two daughters, Natalie and Naima.

Oulu, on the other hand, was an educationist who worked for several human rights organisations, including the Youth Agenda. He left the Youth Agenda recently to join the Oscar Foundation.

The foundation is a registered charitable organisation that offers free legal services to the poor.

Police arrest Oscar King’ara during a demo at Murengeti on Nairobi-Naivasha highway, last month. Photo: File/Standard

The organisation has done research on corruption in the police force, prisons department and police brutality against the urban poor.

Their latest activity involved researching cases of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings. These made some associate the organisation with the outlawed Mungiki sect.

Their research culminated in a report on extra-legal judicial execution: The Veil of Impunity: Who is Guilty?

Parliament used their report as source of information on extra-judicial killings.

On February 18, before Parliament debated the Motion on extra-judicial killings, King’ara presented the foundation’s findings to Limuru MP Peter Mwathi, the Motion’s mover.

Their last engagement with Parliament was a presentation to the Kioni Committee investigating organised gangs, last month. The foundation also gave their side of the story to UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Prof Philip Alston and with the MPs. Alston later released a report that has divided the Grand Coalition Government after it blamed police for extra-judicial killings.

Advocacy skills

The foundation is credited with the campaigns that persuaded the Government to domesticate the Convention on the Rights of the Child that saw the enactment of the Children Act 2001.

Kingara attended university in India while Oulu studied at the University of Nairobi.

They horned their human rights advocacy skills in the Nairobi streets.

Before their murder on Thursday, they gave separate interviews on Wednesday and Thursday morning.

Nairobi University students at the scene where the Oscar Foundation officials were shot dead. Photo: Boniface Okendo/Standard

They accused police and a Cabinet minister of orchestrating the mass slaughter of innocent people in the name of fighting Mungiki.

Considered a fearless maverick by colleagues, King’ara had lately re-branded the Oscar Foundation’s lorry caravan with pictures of ministers and senior police officers he had accused of orchestrating extra-judicial killings. Several times this year, he expressed fears for his life. Often, he had a premonition of his death, expressing a desire to donate his organs to Nairobi University’s School of Medicine for research.

Wanted body cremated

According to a friend, who asked not to be named, King’ara though from a family of Catholics, said he wanted his body cremated.

Two years ago, his sister, Anne, was killed in Moshi, Tanzania, after Tanzanian police claimed she was part of a gang of bank robbers that had gone to that country to price away jailed Kenyan criminals. Initially a member of the Release Political Prisoners group, he gained fame for his free legal services to the poor under the Oscar Foundation. His last assignment was the meeting with Alston.

Oulu on the other hand, hailed from Seme, in Kisumu Rural constituency. He was expelled from Nairobi University’s Kikuyu Campus in 2002 where he studied education. He was readmitted during the Narc administration and graduated in 2004, then joined the civil society.

During the last General Election, he vied for a civic seat in Makadara on an ODM ticket and lost.