On April 3, authorities made mask wearing mandatory for everyone in public places and introduced mandatory quarantine for those who did not wear masks or breached curfew, but parliament rejected that requirement on April 21. On March 25, President Kenyatta announced a nationwide dusk-to-dawn curfew starting March 27, 2020. In July, Kenyan organizations documented 15 cases of killings by police across Kenya while enforcing coronavirus control measures. Police also broke into homes and shops, extorted money from residents or looted food in locations across the country. The police, without apparent justification, shot and beat people at markets or on the way home from work, even before the daily start of the curfew. In April, Human Rights Watch found that police had killed at least six people within the first 10 days of Kenya’s dusk-to-dawn curfew, imposed on March 27, to contain the spread of Covid-19. In February 2020, Human Rights Watch found that Kenyan police had, between December and February, shot dead at least eight people in Nairobi’s Mathare, Kasarani, and Majengo settlements. Abuses by Security Forcesĭespite widely known and documented police abuses, Kenyan authorities have done little to end police brutality, rarely investigating these killings. IPOA has only managed six successful prosecutions since its establishment in 2011. Killings by police have remained largely unaddressed, with the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA), a civilian police accountability institution, unable, for various reasons, to investigate and prosecute most of the over 2,000 incidents of police killings currently on its files. Arrest warrants remain pending before the International Criminal Court against three persons on allegations of witness tampering in cases relating to the 2007/2008 election violence. President Kenyatta and Odinga proposed a referendum to create the position of prime minister, presumably to accommodate Kenyatta who is term-barred from running again in 2022.Įxtrajudicial killings, abusive evictions, and lack of accountability for serious abuses remain significant challenges. Although the March 2018 handshake between President Uhuru Kenyatta and main opposition leader, Raila Odinga, eased political tensions, authorities have not taken any significant steps to ensure electoral reforms.
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