The Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC) condemns in the strongest possible terms, the Extra Judicial Executions of two UNARMED young men in Eastleigh on Friday 31 March 2017.
This brazen execution by known police officers is unfortunately not an isolated incident. Rather, it is the more publicized recording of a common occurrence in many Nairobi Eastlands areas, where the rule of law does not apply. These executions happen primarily in the poorer areas of Nairobi, because, as it is well known, all alleged suspects of the national theft in government have not been accorded the same treatment.
Is the rule of law not applicable to the poorer populations and the underclass of this country? And if so, is Kenya a democratic state? The rating of Kenya as having the highest rate of reported extrajudicial executions (Amnesty International, 122 out of 147) in Africa reveals a horrifying trend of a State degenerating into its crudest form and abandoning the democratic values enshrined in the constitution
Article 48 – 51 of our constitution guarantees every person the right to due process, while the Police Act is clear on the circumstances that justify the use of a firearm by the police. The murder by a policeman of unarmed subdued citizens can only be justified in a state of war. The reality of living in a democratic state should apply to all Kenyan citizens, irrespective of their class.
We therefore demand that:
- The particular policeman who has been recorded and who has been incriminated in so many other such cases be arrested with immediate effect;
- The other policemen responsible for these violations be immediately apprehended and the attendant legal procedures be instituted against the suspects;
- The legal rights of all citizens be guaranteed under the constitution of this country;
- The Nairobi County Police commander Japheth Koome be held accountable for the unconstitutional statements he made in support of extrajudicial executions;
- The Cabinet Secretary of Internal Affairs Joseph Nkaissery, and the IGP give a statement on and a resolution for extrajudicial executions in the country;
- The executive account for Kenya’s ranking as the country with the highest extrajudicial executions on the continent, and consequently explain whether Kenya is still a democratic state.
We are aware that the prevailing socio-economic and political circumstances are layered and intricate. They entail a long colonial history of racial and then class dehumanization compounded by every successive government, and, attendant to it, the degenerate circumstances in which an underclass is produced, including the police and the alleged criminals. Creating and then criminalizing poverty only serves to produce criminality and violence. If this continues we can only ask: who is next?