Kenya under pressure to allow UN to assess human rights situation

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights, in an advisory to the government, has recommended that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs grant the UN the rights and opportunity to visit the country officially.

The recommendation comes on the back of what the KNCHR terms as poor human rights conditions in the country.

The commission continues to raise concerns about the state in which the country’s human rights defenders operate.

From arbitrary arrests and detention to outright killing of human rights defenders, the commission has called out the government and its agencies for failing to perform their primary duty of protecting and enhancing their rights.

“The operating environment of human rights in the country is not good, we have seen even when they are demonstrators how they are handled,” said Bernard Mugesa, CEO, KNCHR.

KNCHR reviewed the period between 2020 to 2022 and found that eight human rights defenders were killed, two disappeared, while 144 human rights defenders were detained arbitrarily. Human rights activists say those figures have increased in the ensuing period.

“The next study will demonstrate that the statistics that you’ve seen here will go down by 30% at least. They are too many state officers who are cowed by orders from above. The entire structure has become paralyzed by state culture,” said Irungu Houghton, executive director, Amnesty International.

Kenya’s human rights record is also taking a beating on the international stage. KNCHR says the country’s delay in allowing the UN special rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association to visit is placing the country in bad standing.

“It baffles us as to why the government is not clear on allowing the special rapporteur on HRD for a visit. The other rapporteurs who have expressed a desire to visit Kenya, for example, the rapporteur for the right to health, have made similar kind of request, but they haven’t been granted,” added Mugesa.

The commission further wants the government to enact legislation or policy that will recognize the role of human rights defenders in the country, as well as ratify international protocols that enhance and protect human rights defenders in Kenya.