Since the November 7th press conference organized by the Justice Centre’s Working Group to militate against the recent surge in extrajudicial killings in poor urban settlements like Dandora and Mathare and around the country, threats to various members of this Working Group have increased. In particular, on various social media sites, personalities such as the notorious Hessy wa Dandora (and other Hessys and their fans) have made direct threats to human rights defenders linked to the Dandora Community Justice Centre (DCJC), and also known police officers have issued threats against MSJC’s field coordinator Kennedy Chindi/JJ. Some of these threats are on Facebook and examples are below.
This is a situation made worse by the Governor of Nairobi who supports the violent police actions, that have also increased over the last two months.
Even while the Police Reforms Working Group (PRWG) and the Justice Centre’s Working Group(JCWG) marched to the Dandora Police Station on November 16th to lodge formal complaints against the intimidation and threats, these continue and we also continue to steadfastly agitate against the extrajudicial killings and the threats against us.
We ask for solidarity for members of the Justice Centre’s Working Group at this time, and for the public to come out strongly against these extrajudicial killings.