Amnesty International Celebrates Release of
Kenyan Human Rights Defenders but the Government of Kenya Continues to Detain
and Harass its Political Opponents
Amnesty International USA (AIUSA) has had reason
for cautious celebration over the past several weeks with news from Kenya of the
release of three human rights defenders on whose behalf AIUSA members worked
diligently for more than three years. While cheers rang out following the
release of prominent activists Koigi wa Wamwere, his brother Charles Kuria
Wamware, and associate GG Njuguna Ngengi, AIUSA is still urging the government
to make the releases unconditional and to grant the freedom of other unjustly
arrested human rights workers.
Since the arrest of several Kenyan human rights
defenders in late 1993, AIUSA,s Urgent Action Network, Freedom Writers Network,
Chicago Group 259, along with others involved in a section-wide "Freedom in the
Balance" campaign on Kenya and Nigeria, launched a concerted effort to gain
their unconditional release. Between mid-December and mid-January, three of the
activists were released on bail pending appeal.
When Koigi wa Wamwere was freed on December 16,
he praised Amnesty International for helping him gain his freedom. He is now in
Norway receiving medical treatment. On January 13, his fellow human rights
organizers Charles Kuria Wamwere and GG Njuguna Ngengi were released and also
thanked Amnesty International. In Kenya receiving medical treatment, the two men
are under restriction regarding communication with the press, but one of them
has said through his lawyer that "Amnesty International,s action was very
helpful," in obtaining the release.
The government of Kenya continues to detain and
harass political opponents, including members of parliament, journalists,
students, priests and other human rights activists. Since 1992, the country has
been wracked by systematic human rights abuses, including the incitement of
ethnic violence, arbitrary detention and torture, and a particularly alarming
increase in the use of false criminal charges against government critics. |
