Rights group criticises bid to increase police powers

PHOTO | FILE National Police Service Commission (NPSC) Chairman Johnston Kavuludi (left) and Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo in Nairobi on the 10th of January, 2014 during the vetting of Senior Police officers.   NATION

In Summary

• Human Rights Watch on Sunday warned that the decision to step up the Inspector-General’s powers would lead to serious human rights violations by security agencies.
• The 2014 report says police were implicated in serious crimes throughout 2013 including arbitrary arrests, rape, torture, use of excessive force, killings and disappearances of several Muslim clerics and their associates in Mombasa.

By Nation Correspondent
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A global human rights lobby has accused Kenya of coming up with laws to increase police powers and boost executive control, in violation of the Constitution.

Human Rights Watch on Sunday warned that the decision to step up the Inspector-General’s powers would lead to serious human rights violations by security agencies.

The lobby’s Africa director Daniel Bekele said police unlawfully killed more than 120 people between May and August 2013 but the killers had not been prosecuted.

“There was no move toward justice for victims of long-standing patterns of human rights violations by police including extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and other abuses,” he said during release of their world report in Nairobi.

The 2014 report says police were implicated in serious crimes throughout 2013 including arbitrary arrests, rape, torture, use of excessive force, killings and disappearances of several Muslim clerics and their associates in Mombasa.

“The slow pace of police reform, lack of accountability... and the government’s failure to hold to account perpetrators of the 2007/08 post-election violence remain key concerns,” he said.