Kenyans protest against police brutality, demand justice

Source: Al-Jazeera

Protesters in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, have staged a demonstration against police brutality, demanding justice for the victims of extrajudicial killings.

The protest, which was held on Monday June 8, 2020, followed a report that police officers were involved in the killing of at least 15 people since authorities imposed a coronavirus curfew in late March.

About 200 demonstrators in Mathare, a densely populated settlement in Nairobi, were comprised mostly of young people and mothers who carried signs in solidarity with friends, neighbours and sons killed in police operations in recent years.

Others held placards reading slogans such as “Our life is priceless”, “Save our future” and “Never again”.

“I am here to protest for our youth who have died in the hands of the police without any wrongdoings and we are saying enough is enough.

“As mothers, many of our youths have been killed while being labelled as thieves,” Mathare resident Rahma Wako told AFP news agency.

Kenya’s Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) reported last week it had received 87 complaints against police since the dusk-to-dawn curfew and heightened security measures were imposed on March 27.

Some 15 deaths and “31 incidents where victims sustained injuries” have been “directly linked to actions of police officers during the curfew enforcement”, it said.

In recent days, cities around the world have witnessed enormous protests against police brutality and racism following the killing of another Black man in the United States, George Floyd, at the hands of white officers.

Activists in Kenya have taken to social media to draw parallels with the country’s own scourge of police brutality, which typically goes unpunished.