PBI-Kenya highlights virtual campaign that commemorates the International Day for the Right to Truth

On March 24, the Peace Brigades International-Kenya Project posted, “Missing Voices, the Mothers of Victims and Survivors Network, National Victims and Survivors Network and the Kenya Transitional Justice network, today carry out a virtual campaign to commemorate the International Day for the Right to the truth regarding gross human rights violations and for the dignity for victims.”

“They seek to honour the memory of victims of gross and systematic human rights violations and promote the importance of the right to truth and justice; and pay tribute to Kenyans who have devoted their lives to, and lost their lives in the struggle to promote and protect human rights for all.”

PBI-Kenya adds, “The partners expressed concern at the delay of justice for victims of extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. They have urged the government to fully operationalise the Prevention of Torture Act, the National Coroners Service Act and the Victim Protection Act, that will be help eliminate EJEs, torture and enforced disappearances perpetuated by state agencies.”

On February 14, Missing Voices, a group of organizations whose mission is to end enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings in Kenya, released its 2019 Annual Report on the State of Police Killings and Enforced Disappearances in Kenya.

That report found that police killed 107 Kenyans in 2019 and that most of those killed were young men mostly in informal settlements.

On February 20, Human Rights Watch stated, “Since December 25, 2019, police in Kenya have shot dead at least eight people in Nairobi’s Mathare, Kasarani, and Majengo settlements. The police continue to kill crime suspects and protesters in cold blood despite persistent calls to end the killings and the use of excessive force.”

PBI-Kenya is a partner organization to Missing Voices, works with the Mathare Social Justice Centre, the Ghetto Foundation and Saferworld on the Ushirikiano Mwema kwa Usalama (Good relationships for safety) projects, has provided trainings for the recently-formed Network of Mothers of Victims and Survivors of extra judicial killings, and convenes the monthly WHRD (Women Human Rights Defenders) Toolkit Organizers meetings.

In 2018, four PBI-Kenya international volunteers accompanied members of two grassroots organizations and twenty-nine human rights defenders working in the Nairobi’s urban settlements and the Mount Kenya region.

For more on the International Day for the Right to the Truth Concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the Dignity of Victims, please click here.