NAIROBI, Kenya – Kenyan security forces abducted, arbitrarily arrested, tortured, and killed perceived leaders of the anti-Finance Bill protests between June and August 2024, Human Rights Watch said today.
Security officers held abductees, who they had detained without respecting their legal rights, in unlawful detention facilities, including in forests and abandoned buildings, and denied them access to their families and lawyers.
The protests, organized largely by people between the ages of 18 and 35, began weeks earlier but gained momentum after the introduction of the Finance Bill 202 in parliament on June 18, as protesters expressed outrage over provisions that would raise taxes on essential goods and services to meet International Monetary Fund revenue targets.
On June 25 at about 2:30 p.m., a crowd estimated by the security team at parliament to have been between 3,000 to 4,000 people broke through the parliament fence, where they encountered anti-riot police officers, who shot directly at the crowd, killing several.
The protesters overpowered the police and entered parliament through the back entrance, destroying furniture and other items.
“The ongoing deadly crackdown on protesters further taints Kenya’s already dismal human rights record,” said Otsieno Namwaya, associate Africa director at Human Rights Watch.
“The authorities should end the abductions, publicly denounce rhetoric that attempts to criminalize peaceful protests, and ensure prompt investigation and fair prosecution of security officers credibly implicated in the abuses.”
President William Ruto described the protesters’ action as an “invasion” and treason. On June 26 the president withdrew the bill, but police continue to track and abduct social media activists believed to be protest leaders and protesters whose faces were caught on CCTV cameras at parliament.
Between August and September, Human Rights Watch interviewed 75 people in the Mathare, Kibera, Rongai, Mukuru Kwa Njenga, and Githurai neighborhoods of Nairobi, the Kenyan capital. They included former abductees, witnesses, journalists, parliamentary staff, relatives of abducted and missing people, other protesters, human rights activists, and police officers.
The interviewees described how, several weeks after the protests, security officers in civilian clothes with their faces concealed were still hunting down, forcibly disappearing, and killing perceived protest leaders. Witnesses and survivors of abductions said abductors drove unmarked cars whose registration plates were repeatedly changed, making it difficult to trace the owners.
Human Rights Watch research shows that the officers were largely drawn from the Directorate of Criminal Investigations, supported by the Rapid Deployment Unit, military intelligence, Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and the National Intelligence Service.
The abductees said they were seized from their homes, jobs, and the street, and detained for prolonged periods without being charged, even though Kenyan law requires arraignment of suspects in court within 24 hours.
A 28-year-old protester said he was picked up during the protests on June 27 by men in civilian clothes with covered faces. He was detained briefly at Nairobi’s central police station, then taken with other people to an abandoned building at a location he did not recognize.
“The place looked like it was used for torture, with blood stains on the floor,” he said. “About eight armed officers threw me on the floor and beat me with their gun butts on my ribs and kicked me for like two hours until I bled. They threatened to kill me while asking ‘Who is funding this thing? Who is supporting you, protesters?’”
In August, the state-funded Kenya National Commission on Human Rights said it had documented at least 73 abductions. But three senior staff told Human Rights Watch that they stopped public updates due to threats and pressure from senior government officials.
While some of those abducted have been released, worried relatives of other missing people, who they suspect to have been abducted by security forces, continue to search for them.
Bodies of some of those reported missing have been found in rivers, forests, abandoned quarries, and mortuaries; showing signs of torture, with some mutilated and dismembered.
Multiple people interviewed by Human Rights Watch, including former detainees, said the police accused them of attempting to overthrow the government and threatened to kill them if they did not disclose the identities of protest leaders and funders.
Several victims said that police officers punched, slapped, kicked, and beat them with rubber whips, sticks, plastic pipes, and in some instances butt stocks of firearms. At least two people said police officers used pliers to pull out their pubic hair and nails during interrogation. Nearly all people previously detained said police denied them food and water, and asked families to pay between Ksh3,000 (US$23) and Ksh10,000 ($76.9) in bribes for their release.
Some family members who witnessed abductions said they could not locate relatives abducted by people they believed to be police in civilian clothes. Others said they saw police who shot their relatives dead taking the bodies away.
A 25-year-old man said he saw men in civilian clothes that he believed to be police as they were communicating on police radio, snatch his 28-year-old brother, Brian Kamau, in the Githurai neighborhood: “They were three men in plainclothes wearing balaclavas. They kicked, punched, and stepped on Brian before they forcefully bundled him into a Subaru car and sped off. That was the last time I saw him.”
The authorities should provide information to families about the whereabouts of missing relatives, Human Rights Watch said. Under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearances, no one should be subjected to enforced disappearance and no exceptional circumstances, even a state or threat of war, may be invoked as justification.
An enforced disappearance is defined as the arrest, detention, or abduction of persons by state forces, or with the authorization or support of the state, followed by a refusal to acknowledge the detention or give information on the fate or whereabouts of the person when asked.
Kenyan authorities should immediately end these abuses and facilitate investigations into the abductions and killings of protesters by an independent tribunal made up of Kenyans and non-Kenyans, including lawyers, judges, and investigators. Kenya’s international partners should press the authorities to respect the right to peaceful protest and create an environment conducive to independent investigations.
Under the United Nations’ Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, police and other law enforcement officials should always identify themselves, and avoid use of force on peaceful protesters or restrict such force to the minimum extent necessary.
Lethal force should only be used when strictly necessary to prevent an imminent threat to life. Police should also not use excessive force on detainees in their custody.
“The Kenyan government needs to end the culture of abusive law enforcement that has defined protests in Kenya for the past two decades,” Namwaya said.
“President Ruto should publicly disavow abusive police conduct and ensure independent investigations and prosecutions for these abuses.”
