The Police Reforms Working Group- Kenya, on 28 November 2023, issued a statement in response to the report of the National Taskforce on Improvement of Terms and Conditions of Service and other reforms for members of the National Police Service and Kenya Prisons Service. They deemed the report welcome, but short on human rights and community policing.
In June PBI drew the attention of the United Nations Human Rights Council to extrajudicial executions committed in Colombia, Honduras and Kenya.
About Kenya, the full statement reads:
From March until the end of 2024, PBI Kenya together with Kayole Community Justice Centre, Kibera Social Justice Centre and the Mathare Network (Ghetto Foundation, Ruaraka Community Justice Centre, Kiamaiko Community Justice Centre and Mathare Social Justice Centre) will set in motion a project to improve relationships and dialogue between HRDs, citizens and security forces in their respective areas.
The Missing Voices 2022 Annual Report Accountability now was launched on 24 March 2023, the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims. Missing Voices documented 130 cases of police killings and 22 cases of enforced disappearances in 2022, bringing the total number to 152.
The start of the new year has not been an easy one for human rights defenders in Kenya and the region.
A group of Kenyan artists affected by extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances is using its talents to spotlight the abuses. They speak truth to power, risking their lives to bring a just society.
“The right to life is the most fundamental of human rights, and extrajudicial killings violate this very fundamental right, which is protected under various international human rights mechanisms and treaties.” Examples are the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Constitution of Kenya also protects the Right to Life.
Missing Voices is a group of organizations whose mission is to end enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Kenya. Missing Voices organises public campaigns to highlight extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances and puts the stories of victims and their families in the centre. Find out more on www.missingvoices.or.ke Their website provides current numbers of extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances and profiles of the victims and the circumstances under which their death or disappearance occurred.
‘Saba Saba - then and now’ documents the perspective of activists who participated in the struggles in the 1990s: their aspirations, their cause and the hurdles they encountered. How did they overcome those hurdles and at what risks did this come?
Then the film zooms in on the organizing going on today. What are the struggles, what is the response of the governments and how are human rights defenders supported? There are lessons learned from then and now.
2021 was a year of regenerating so much of what was lost, put on hold or forgotten the year before with the Covid-19 pandemic. Priorities and plans have shifted and PBI, along with so many other organisations, has been reflecting on and adjusting our work to ensure that the protection we provide to human rights defenders (HRDs) across the world remains relevant and responds to their urgent needs.