Kenya\u2019s police watchdog has accused officers of using \u201cdisproportionate force\u201d to quell a recent series of protests during which 65 people died.<\/p>\n
In a report released on Thursday, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa) linked most of the deaths to actions by the police.<\/p>\n
It also highlighted the role of opportunists who infiltrated the protests \u2013 described as \u201cgoons\u201d \u2013 who \u201cundermined the principles of peaceful assembly\u201d.<\/p>\n
Over the past six weeks, there have been four separate days of demonstrations which were called over police brutality and anger at government policies.<\/p>\n
The first in the capital, Nairobi \u2013 on 12 June \u2013 was \u201clargely peaceful\u201d, the Ipoa report says. It followed the death in custody of a young teacher and blogger, Albert Ojwang, which the police initially said was a result of self-inflicted injuries.<\/p>\n
Since then three police officers have been charged with his murder.<\/p>\n
A second protest on 17 June led to the\u00a0shooting at point-blank range of one civilian, street vendor Boniface Kariuki, who later died. An officer has been charged in connection with the killing.<\/p>\n
Then on 23 June, a protest was called to mark a year since deadly anti-government demonstrations broke out over tax rises, which were later reversed. The Ipoa report says that 23 people died in different parts of the country on that day.<\/p>\n
The fourth day \u2013 7 July \u2013\u00a0saw the biggest loss of life\u00a0with 41 people dying.<\/p>\n
Across the four days, the watchdog also documented 342 injuries to civilians and 171 injuries to police, along with looting and vandalism targeting businesses, police stations and government installations.<\/p>\n
The Ipoa says its monitors saw \u201csignificant breaches of constitutional policing standards, including use of disproportionate force, lack of professionalism, and failure to uphold public safety and rights\u201d.<\/p>\n
A police spokesperson declined to comment on the report, instead referring the BBC to an Interior Ministry statement from 15 July, which blamed the violence on \u201ccriminals\u201d \u201clooters\u201d and \u201canarchists\u201d.<\/p>\n
Responding to the violence in the wake of the 7 July demonstrations, President William Ruto ordered police to shoot protesters targeting businesses in the legs, ensuring they were incapacitated but not killed.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnyone caught burning another person\u2019s business or property should be shot in the leg, hospitalised, and later taken to court. Don\u2019t kill them, but ensure their legs are broken,\u201d the president said.<\/p>\n
In June, Interior Minister Kipchumba Murkomen denied the police had used excessive force and described the protests as \u201cterrorism disguised as dissent\u201d and an \u201cunconstitutional attempt\u201d to change the government.<\/p>\n
Rights groups have condemned the government\u2019s response to the protests, accusing the authorities of allowing and at times encouraging the use of deadly force against demonstrators.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kenya\u2019s police watchdog has accused officers of using \u201cdisproportionate force\u201d to quell a recent series of protests during which 65 people died. In a report released on Thursday, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (Ipoa) linked most of the deaths to actions by the police. It also highlighted the role of opportunists who infiltrated the protests […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-118751","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118751","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118751"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118751\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118751"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118751"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118751"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}