The Interior Department’s Cabinet Secretary (CS), Kithure Kindiki, argues that police personnel cannot bear sole responsibility for the deaths of demonstrators shot during the deadly protests on June 25. These rallies led to an invasion of the Parliament buildings in Nairobi.
During his appearance on Thursday before the National Assembly National Security Committee, Chief Secretary Kindiki presented a disjointed argument about why police shot nonviolent protestors on a day that ultimately proved to be fatal.
Due to his extensive legal knowledge, the Chief Security Officer (CS) stated that it is incorrect to assign blame to police personnel without providing proof that police shots killed the protestors.
Police intervention thwarted a coup attempt that occurred during the demonstrations in June and July.
Not 61, but 42: C.S. Kindiki challenges the figures provided by rights organisations about the number of fatalities that occurred during anti-government demonstrations by Generation Z.
A person’s shooting does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a law enforcement officer shot them. He stated that there could be a presumption that the bullet belongs to a law enforcement officer.
Kindiki justified police officers’ use of severe force against nonviolent protestors by arguing that the national security force was necessary to protect vital national institutions, such as Parliament.
The claim that law enforcement officials cannot use force is unfounded. It would have been a different Kenya if we had never used force on that fateful day, he continued. “We would have been talking about a different Kenya.”
“If we succeed in overthrowing constitutional institutions like the executive, judiciary, and parliament, we will find ourselves without a nation.”
“If the nation didn’t exist in the first place, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
To exacerbate the situation, he stated that the anti-government demonstrations between June and August claimed the lives of 42 Kenyans.
This contradicts the findings of Amnesty International and numerous other human rights groups, who registered the number at 61.
Kindiki claimed to have a report detailing the circumstances surrounding the murders of thirty people during the demonstrations, despite his ignorance of the circumstances behind the deaths of the other twelve.
He requested twenty-four hours to deliver the information on the twelve outstanding instances.
Amnesty International detailed their research in detail in a statement they released on Wednesday, which included interviewing 23 witnesses, reviewing 45 videos, and looking through over 100 images from the day of the demonstration.
Furthermore, the study revealed that 67 incidents of enforced disappearances have been documented this year, with forty cases having been resolved up to this point, leaving 27 cases that have not yet been addressed.
