More than 8,000 Kenyans have been executed or tortured to death since 2002 when police launched a crackdown on a banned, politically linked sect, a group of Kenyan lawyers said on Sunday.
The Oscar Foundation said it had "documented 8,040 cases of death by execution and torture perpetuated by state agents and another 4,070 cases of disappearance where victims remain unaccounted for in the period between August 2002 and August 2007."
"A pattern of `systematic and selective' violation of citizen's right occurs arbitrarily, often the youth and poor people are targeted for brutality, torture and extrajudicial executions," the foundation said in a report.
"It was noted that most of the cases of torture occurred when officers attempted to extract confessions by force while extorting bribes from the suspected adherents," the report said.
"Those who refuse to part with bribes were blindfolded and led away to the killing fields where they were summarily executed," it said.
The group claimed, "a number of unknown people were secretly buried in pit latrines in [Nairobi's] Mathare and Korogocho slums after a contingent of the dreaded crack General Service Unit -- Kenyan police paramilitary wing -- mounted a crackdown to wipe out Mungiki operatives from the slum."
But police spokesman Eric Kiraithe dismissed the report, saying: "Police cannot comment on outrageous reports authored by dubious characters."
"If the authors of the report are serious, they should give the names of the victims, places where they were killed and by whom. That way, the claims can be investigated by police and the international community now or in future," he said.
The foundation, made up of human rights lawyers also offer free legal services, offered no specific evidence in its report, called "State Repression."
Earlier this month, the state-run Kenya National Commission on Human Rights implicated the Kenyan police in the execution-style deaths of nearly 500 men in June and last month in its crackdown on the Mungiki sect.
Police also rejected claims in which police were accused of executing the victims with a single bullet in the back of the head. Some of the bodies were recovered in bushes on the outskirts of the capital and others in mortuaries.
Security forces launched a crackdown on the Mungiki sect after it was banned in March 2002 when its members were involved in deadly slum violence in the capital Nairobi that claimed dozens of lives.
Once a religious group of dreadlocked youths who embraced traditional rituals, authorities say the sect has morphed into a ruthless gang blamed for criminal activities including extortion and murder.
Since March, the gang has been accused of murdering at least 43 people -- beheading several of their victims -- mainly in Nairobi slums and central Kenya.
The wave of killings peaked in June, raising fears of widespread instability in Kenya ahead of general elections next month, but a police crackdown that killed dozens of Mungiki suspects has since curbed the violence.
At the height of the crackdown, London-based Amnesty International called for an immediate probe, saying police could be guilty of a raft of human rights violations.
The allegations come ahead of a general election in Kenya next month, when President Mwai Kibaki will seek a second and final term in office.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS