(Garissa) - The Kenyan security forces are beating
and arbitrarily detaining citizens and Somali refugees in Kenya's North Eastern province, which
borders on Somalia, despite
repeated pledges to stop such abuses, Human Rights Watch said today.
On
January 11, 2012, in the latest of a series of incidents documented by Human
Rights Watch since October 2011, security forces rounded up and beat residents
of Garissa, the provincial capital, in an open field within the enclosure of the
local military camp. A Human Rights Watch researcher witnessed the
incident.
"When military officers can beat civilians in broad daylight
without fearing repercussions, it's clear that impunity has become the norm,"
said Daniel Bekele, Africa
director at Human Rights Watch. "Repeated promises by both the police and the
military to stop these abuses and investigate have amounted to
nothing."
The Kenyan police and military have been responsible for a
growing number of serious abuses against civilians since the Kenya Defence
Forces entered southern Somalia in October, with the stated aim of eliminating
al-Shabaab, an Islamist militia. The same month, suspected al-Shabaab
sympathizers initiated a series of attacks against police, military, and
civilian targets in Kenya.
In response, members of the security forces
have been responsible for rape, beatings, looting, and arbitrary arrests of
civilians. The crackdown has largely targeted Somali refugees and Kenyan ethnic
Somalis, but residents of other ethnic backgrounds in North Eastern province
have also been victimized.
The incident in Garissa on January 11 involved
Kenyan citizens who told Human Rights Watch that they had been arbitrarily
detained by the military. One of them, Ali Ibrahim Hilole, was at a shop across
from the military camp buying items for a hospitalized relative when a military
officer said to him: "Why are you standing here? So you're al-Shabaab." Soldiers
forced him to accompany them to the camp, where they kicked him and told him to
roll around on the ground.
Yusuf Khalif Mohamed, a long distance truck
driver, stopped in Garissa for a soft drink on his way from Mombasa to Dadaab,
where he was to make a food delivery for UNICEF. He parked his truck near the
military camp, not knowing that parking was prohibited there. A military officer
forced him to come to the camp, where soldiers threw a 20-liter container of
water on him, forced him to roll on the ground, kicked him on the side, and hit
him on the head with the butt of a gun. Mohamed told Human Rights Watch that one
of them said, "I think you are al-Shabaab. You are bothering us in Somalia, and
now you've come to bother us here."
Both men, along with at least five to
seven others who were similarly detained and mistreated - most of them truck
drivers, and all of them Kenyan citizens - were released after 30 minutes. They
were not interrogated or charged with any crime.
A Human Rights Watch
researcher who attempted to visit the military camp to speak to the officer in
charge witnessed soldiers forcing several men to lie down in the dirt and
forcing another man to frog-jump across the field and to assume various
gymnastic positions. Military personnel refused entry to Human Rights Watch, one
of them stating, "There are no human rights here."
The military
spokesperson, Maj. Emmanuel Chirchir, said by phone from Nairobi that the people
held at the military camp were being questioned because they had tried to build
an illegal structure to sell things outside the camp. Chirchir said he did not
have knowledge of any abuses, but assured Human Rights Watch that the military
would investigate the allegations.
The events in Garissa follow a series
of human rights violations by security forces against ethnic Somalis and others.
On November 11, soldiers in Garissa rounded up ethnic Somalis arbitrarily on the
basis of their appearance, beat them, and forced them to sit in dirty water
while interrogating them.
On November 24, following two grenade attacks
on civilian targets in Garissa and an improvised explosive device (IED) attack
on a military convoy in Mandera, police and soldiers rounded up hundreds of
suspects in both towns. Some were beaten so severely that they suffered broken
limbs. In the days following the attacks, suspects were arrested at random.
Human Rights Watch interviewed some who were taken to Garissa military camp and
forced to do humiliating exercises, such as standing on their heads, and were
beaten if they could not comply.
Explosions in the town of Wajir in early
December were also followed by arbitrary arrests and beatings. A local activist
in Wajir told Human Rights Watch that after an IED went off on December 12,
injuring an intelligence officer and several others, police and soldiers rounded
up and beat ethnic Somalis over the next three days.
"They criminalize
all Somali people," he said. "Whenever a crime is committed, detaining and
torturing people doesn't seem like a good security strategy. It is creating a
barrier between the people and the security forces."
The worst abuses
took place at Dadaab, home to over 460,000 mostly Somali refugees. A police
officer was killed by an IED at Dadaab on December 5, leading to arbitrary
arrests of those in the vicinity. After further explosions targeting police
vehicles on December 19 and 20, one of them killing a police officer, police
reacted angrily, beating refugees, and, in several cases, raping women. The
chair of the Supreme Council of Muslims of Kenya, which conducted investigations
in the camps, said that Kenyan police raped at least seven women following the
explosions. Other victims suffered broken limbs.
A Garissa-based
organization, Citizen Rights Watch, found that on the same occasion police
looted dozens of shops, stealing over 27 million Kenyan shillings (US$310,000)
worth of property and money that refugee traders stored in their
shops.
Garissa residents interviewed by Human Rights Watch complained
that police have not conducted thorough investigations to identify the actual
perpetrators of either the initial attacks or the subsequent abuses by the
security forces.
"Kenya's security forces are rightly concerned about
attacks by suspected al-Shabaab members, and should be doing more, not less, to
identify the attackers," Bekele said. "But beating, raping, and humiliating
innocent Kenyan citizens and Somali refugees accomplishes nothing. Those in the
security forces who are responsible for these abuses should be investigated and
prosecuted."
