Friday, March 6, 2009

Kenyan government accused of assassinations

Nowadays, there is a human rights group (consortium) in Kenya that holds the government responsible for assassinating many of its own citizens. Oscar Kamau Kingara and his colleague were killed not long ago and this caused a major outcry in the country. Oscar had a foundation that had accused local police of killing thousands of people. The government and the police, obviously, denied any allegations related to their involvement of the murders. 

However, a UN investigator called Philip Alston thinks that the police have definitely something to do with this issue. As he told BBC: “It is extremely troubling when those working to defend human rights in Kenya can be assassinated in broad daylight in the middle of Nairobi. This constitutes a major threat to the rule of law, regardless of who might be responsible for the killings.” Mr Kingara gave evidence to Mr Alston, who released a report on this matter later. In the report Mr Alston wants several officers as well as the attorney general to take responsibility by handing in their resignations as soon as possible. 

One can ask the question why Mr Kingara and his colleague, both regarded as active human rights defenders, had to be assassinated. Mr Kingara’s foundation had published a report in which it had stated that almost ten thousand Kenyan had been killed since 2002 and for that the report had held the police responsible. Later, however, a government spokesman accused the foundation of raising money for the so-called Mungiki, a gang the police previously had a raid against. It should be also mentioned that after the murder of Mr Kingara and his colleague, university students gathered around their car not to release their bodies to the police. 

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