NEWSLETTER Volume 2, Issue 3
Preventing Torture Framing the Issue
May 2008
within the fight against terrorism Inside this issue:
Kenya: stop persecution in the fight against terrorism
Kenya: stop persecution in the fight against terror-
by Brandy Bauer, Senior Communications Officer, IRCT
ism
Since the 1998 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi and the subsequent 2002 bombing of a hotel in Mombasa, the government of Kenya has stepped up measures to thwart terrorist attacks. The country established an antiterrorism unit within its police force, set up a National Counter-Terrorism Centre under the responsibility of the National Security and Intelligence Service, and became party to all 12 international conventions related to terrorism. Over the past few years, numerous human rights groups have accused Kenyan authorities of using the rhetoric of fighting terrorism to commit abuses against persons solely because of their ethnic, religious or racial background. The most recent example of such abuse is ongoing in the Mt Elgon area of western Kenya. Since 2005, a guerrilla militia group called the Sabaot Land Defence Force (SLDF) – drawn from the ethnic Sabaot people – has committed numerous atrocities against citizens in the area, including rape, murder, torture and theft or
destruction of property. First perceived as a loosely organised gang, the Kenyan authorities subsequently have deemed the SLDF to be an enemy of the state. In March of this year, the Kenyan military launched Operation Okoa Maisha, an effort to eradicate the SLDF and restore peace to the region. During the operation, police and military personnel sought to arrest SLDF members and recover illegal weapons. However, human rights organisations working in the area observed that instead of flushing out SLDF members, the police and military were conducting a broad campaign of torture and intimidation of civilians. The Independent MedicoLegal Unit (IMLU) – a registered nongovernmental organisation that seeks to promote the rights of torture victims and protect Kenyans from stateperpetrated violence – conducted a fact-finding mission to the region to interview and record the testimony of persons who claimed to have been tortured. IMLU also instructed a team of independent medical experts to carry out a
subsequent forensic medical examination of these persons, utilising the Istanbul Protocol, an internationally recognised instrument for the effective investigation and documentation of torture.1 In a preliminary report published together with the International Commission of Jurists-Kenya (IC J-K) and Child Legal Action Network, IMLU provides evidence that the allegations are true: the Kenyan military did perpetrate acts of torture against hundreds of civilians rounded up during Operation Okoa Maisha.
Spotlight on: the Philippines
3
Recommended reading
4
•
All of the arrests were characterised by an element of ambush by military officers, who burst into homes or violently seized the men while they carried out their daily business. In some cases police officers deceived those being arrested by requesting the men accompany them to a place where they would be given a card showing that they are not members of the SLDF (in which case they willingly complied). Later the arrestees were put into army trucks and taken to torture camps.
•
Almost all of those interviewed claimed the military carried out torture, though a few also claimed the police tortured them during their arrest or transfer to stations/courts.
• More than 400 torture
• The majority of those accused were males between the ages of 20 and 30.
2
Reporting on torture in the context of the “war on terrorism”
Some of the key findings from the IMLU team include the following: survivors had been remanded at nearby Bungoma Prison after being charged at the local law courts. The prison’s officer-incharge noted that this represented an almost doubling in the number of prisoners since the operation began.
1