The Star newspaper reported on Monday 29/04/2013 that a human rights group in Garissa has threatened to take legal action against the government over alleged harassment and torture on local residents by police. Northern Forum for Democracy spokesman Khalif Abdi Farah said the organization has enough evidence to back allegations of rights abuses by officers during the ongoing security operations in the town.
“It is very unfortunate that as we are speaking, hundreds of innocent people are nursing injuries inflicted on them by police officers. The officers have been secretly picking up some individuals then taking them at some secret locations and afterwards torture them on allegations that they are terror suspects,” said Khalif. He claimed a high school student is among those tortured by officers. His statement comes just two days after Muslim clerics also cried foul over the manner in which the operation in Garissa was being carried out. Speaking on Friday 26th, the clerics’ spokesman Sheikh Hussein said police had resorted to “harassing and victimizing the locals under the disguise of looking for criminals”. North Eastern PPO Charlton Mureithi however dismissed the allegations stating that security personnel have acted professionally during the operation. The massive operation to find those responsible for a spate of killings by unknown assailants in Garissa County kicked off last week following the fatal shooting of ten people in a hotel on April 18.
The policy of harassment of Muslims under the guise of fighting terrorism has become the norm in Kenya. Any crime committed in Muslim dominated areas is always branded as terrorism while same or more serious crimes in non-Muslim dominated areas are branded as normal crimes! This gives the police an escape route not to do investigations and grant them blanket powers to conduct security operations in secrecy from public scrutiny. Surprisingly, most of the arrested suspects from such operations are always refugees!! Following the Garissa incident, the Standard on 30/4/13 reported the Inspector General of Police David Kimaiyo as terming the ongoing operation in Garissa a ‘successful story’. How can you term such violence a success when people are nursing wounds from police brutality? We are being told that police are now studying bank accounts of some of the ‘suspects’ arrested in the operation and one of them is suspected of having ‘illegal’ Sh70 million in his bank account in Mwingi town. This is usually a tactic used to extort money from businessmen using threats of being branded a terrorism financier. The police operation that started a week ago has seen more than 500 ‘suspects’ arrested, most of them being refugees. The most we will hear from such arrests will be deportations and not murder prosecutions for the killings that occurred.
Such operations disguised as fighting terrorism are not the first to be conducted in the area. The town has borne the brunt of security operations since the time of secession struggle in the late 60s. It is also the main town of a region most neglected by successive governments. On November 22nd 2012, the Kenya Defense Forces through spokesman Col Cyrus Oguna denied claims they harassed residents of Garissa and burnt property while hunting down assailants who had killed three soldiers. This is despite video footage and eyewitness account of the rampage by the soldiers. As the spokesman was denying the claims, the former Minister of State for Defense, Yusuf Haji quickly distanced himself from the chaos, saying he did not know who sanctioned the operation by KDF in the town thus confirming the allegations that they actually took place. Former National Assembly Deputy Speaker Farah Maalim and nine other legislators condemned the soldiers and stated “The women have been raped, schoolchildren shot yet it is a failure by the Government to track down suspected Al-Shabaab members suspected to have committed the killings (of the three soldiers)” “Right now the entire Garissa is in tatters, millions have been lost after the military officers went burning businesses in the town” These are the hypocritical leaders who dine with the enemies of Muslims and come out to fake sympathy when tragedy strikes the Ummah. As usual with such incidents, no conclusive intelligence has been gathered on exactly what causes insecurity in the region. The County Commissioner Mohammed Maalim says movement of contraband goods is the problem. Detectives in town say a booming black market could be the main cause of the incessant violence while a probe team linked the attacks to rising cases of ‘radical’ Islam.
Despite the violence meted out on residents of the town, they still support the system that oppresses them. During the just concluded elections, residents of the region mostly voted for the governing Jubilee Coalition which has now turned its security forces against them. Though a majority of the residents are Muslims, they are yet to realize that it is only Islam that will be a solution to the perennial problems they face of insecurity, drought and discrimination. Muslims must realize that democratic systems are a fraud that promises paradise while delivering hell and they will never live in peace in a Kufr system. It is only a Khilafah state that will promise and deliver as the leader is guided by divine laws and fears being accounted by the Creator.
Kassim Agesa
Member of Media Office Hizb ut Tahrir East Africa