Amnesty report accuses Kenya police of brutality

Amnesty International's latest report on Kenya says there is nothing random about the violence common under President Daniel arap Moi's regime. An Irish missionary, Brother Larry Timmons, was shot during a robbery at his home last February after making allegations about the rigging of voter registration. The policeman held in connection with the killing had been accused by the Irish Franciscan of corruption.

Solomon Muruli, a student leader, died the same month in a fire on the campus of Nairobi University, shortly after he identified a policeman as one of the people who had abducted and beaten him last year.

These are just two of the victims of the growing wave of human rights abuses in Kenya which Amnesty says is targeted at opposition groups, human rights activists and aid workers.

Discontent arose last month around Mombasa, when 47 people were killed in political violence. With elections due before the end of the year, the violence is expected to worsen.

Amnesty, in its second report on Kenya in four months, sets out a list of concerns: repressive laws; police torture; arbitrary arrests; harassment of the opposition and civil rights groups; and degrading punishments such as caning.

"Police brutality is commonplace throughout Kenya, as evidenced by the cases of death in police custody. Yet investigations of human rights abuses remain the responsibility of the self-same police rather than an independent body," says Ms Mary Lawlor, director of the Irish section of Amnesty.

Mr Moi (74), who is seeking a fifth term in elections later this year, has rejected most of Amnesty's original accusations and said Amnesty was inciting Kenyans against the government.

Civil rights groups, frequently led by the churches, have sprung up to fill the vacuum created by a quarrelling opposition. Growing protest on the streets has made the possibility of a mass boycott of the elections more likely.

According to Mr Maina Kiai, director of the Kenya Human Rights Commission, the killing of Brother Timmons was the result of a "culture of impunity" surrounding the security forces.

Speaking in Dublin yesterday, Mr Kiai said the West needed to use a "big stick" to ensure that constitutional reforms were introduced in Kenya in advance of elections.

"The current struggle for constitutional reform may be the last peaceful opportunity for change," he said.