AFRICA - House Foreign Affairs Committee Democrats

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investigated nor punished. Lengthy pretrial detention was a problem, and the judiciary
was subject to executive branch influence. The authorities infringed on citizens’
privacy rights. The Government limited freedom of speech and of the press, and harassed
and intimidated newspapers that often were critical of the Government. The
Government repeatedly restricted freedom of assembly, and the police disrupted
public meetings and forcibly dispersed demonstrators and protesters. The Government
restricted freedom of association. Political intimidation and violence worsened
prior to the December general elections. The Government continued to limit the
independence of its Standing Committee on Human Rights (SCHR), and the President
continued to criticize nongovernmental human rights organizations (NGOs) for
their alleged involvement in partisan politics. Violence and discrimination against
women and abuse of children remained serious problems. Female genital mutilation
(FGM) remained widespread, child prostitution remained a problem, and the spread
of HIV/AIDS has orphaned many children. There was some discrimination against
persons with disabilities. The Government continued to exacerbate ethnic tensions
by discriminating against many ethnic groups; interethnic tensions, often spurred
by political competition, continued and resulted in numerous violent conflicts and
some deaths. Unlike in previous years, there were no reports of ritual murders associated
with aspects of traditional indigenous religious rites. The Government continued
to limit some worker rights, including summarily dismissing striking public employees.
Child labor remained a problem, and there were instances of forced child
labor. Violence by mobs and by nongovernmental armed groups also resulted in
many deaths.
RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Section 1. Respect for the Integrity of the Person, Including Freedom From:
a. Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life.—Security forces, especially members
of the police, the GSU, and the CID, continued to use lethal force and committed
a number of extrajudicial killings. The SCHR, the Governmental body charged with
addressing human rights issues, noted the ‘‘widespread use of lethal, excessive, and
unnecessary force on civilians by police’’ in its April general report. The Kenya
Human Rights Commission (KHRC), a leading human rights NGO, reported that it
has documented more than a thousand cases of extrajudicial killings in the last decade.
According to government figures, police killed 117 suspected criminals, and another
11 suspects and detainees died while in police custody during the year. The
KHRC reported that police killed 85 persons between January and September. Police
often were not restrained in the use of lethal force, especially when confronting
armed criminal suspects, and the Government generally failed to take appropriate
action against members of the security forces accused of unlawful or arbitrary
killings.
Law enforcement officials maintained that security forces were justified in their
use of deadly force because of the heavily armed, violent criminals they often encountered.
According to the Government, 22 police officers were killed in the line
of duty during the year. Police claimed that the increased use of sophisticated weapons
by criminals had increased the risks faced by police in performing their duties.
In responding to continuing high levels of crime, some police used excessive and
deadly force, sometimes without apparent provocation.
On March 12, the KHRC reported that Administration Police officers shot and
killed Jacob Odero Ogolla at a bar in Kayole when he was approached by the security
agents demanding to know the whereabouts of two persons they said he was
seen with at the bar. The officers allegedly shot Ogolla four times in the chest and
later dumped his body along the road. No arrests or investigations have been made
in this case.
There were incidents in which police killed bystanders. On September 22, police
and suspected robbers in Bungoma engaged in a gun battle that resulted in the
death of six persons, including two bystanders.
Persons died from torture while in custody (see Section 1.c.).
There were some internal police investigations into the many killings of civilians
by members of the security forces and some prosecutions; however, few were effective.
The authorities sometimes attributed the absence of an investigation into an
alleged extrajudicial killing to the failure of citizens to file official complaints. However,
the form required for filing complaints was available only at police stations,
which often lacked the forms or were not forthcoming in providing them. There also
was considerable public skepticism of a process that assigned the investigation of
police abuse to the police themselves. The Police Department reported that 49 police
officers were indicted during the year for various offenses, including murder, assault
causing bodily harm, and corruption; however, the Government did not provide de-
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