Leaders in Africa respond to dissent, terror threats with brutal force, says Amnesty report
Police round up people believed to be staying in the country without proper identification documents in Nairobi. FILE PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE
What you need to know:
Continued repression and persistent denial of fundamental human rights, the report says, are contributing to the cycle of instability and violent conflict in the region.
A recent study by Anneli Botha from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) suggests that such knee-jerk responses to terrorism are making the problem worse by inspiring a new cycle of radicalisation and violence.
Amnesty says the international community needs to re-focus on these conflicts that have persisted for decades with a view to addressing the root causes of armed violence.
Authorities, faced with mounting security challenges and the prospect of losing power in upcoming polls, are responding with brute force to crush terror threats and dissent in East Africa, a report by Amnesty international says.
Muthoni Wanyeki, Amnesty International’s regional director for the wider East African region, said “The statistics of death and the scale of violations in the region do not give much cause for optimism.”
The watchdog documents how millions of people have suffered endemic impunity, long-running conflicts and shrinking civic spaces in 11 countries in East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes.
More than 10 million people are displaced by conflicts in the Horn and Central Africa region, according to estimates by the UN.
Continued repression and persistent denial of fundamental human rights, the report says, are contributing to the cycle of instability and violent conflict in the region — from religious extremism in Somalia and Kenya to unresolved armed conflict in DRC that has dragged Tanzania and Rwanda into the bloody civil war in South Sudan.
The response of governments in the region has been brutal. Reports of mass arbitrary arrests and detentions, and extrajudicial executions are rife, Amnesty says.
Last year ended with Kenya enacting a controversial set of security laws that drastically restrict the civil and political liberties enjoyed by Kenyans.
The laws abrogated key constitutional checks and balances on presidential powers, lengthened the amount of time terror suspects can be detained, and imposed harsh penalties on the media and social media users for distributing material that “threatens national security.”
The opposition Coalition for Reforms and Democracy (Cord) challenged the new laws in court after its passage in a chaotic parliamentary vote on December 18.
Last week, the country’s Supreme Court struck out eight clauses, including those that infringed on press freedom, put a cap on the number of refugees in the country and allowed the police to hold a terror suspect for more than 90 days.
In April 2014, Nairobi was in the international spotlight when the police arbitrarily arrested and detained thousands of Somali refugees and asylum-seekers.
Many of them said they were harassed and suffered extortion during the counter-terror operation dubbed “Usalama Watch”.
Also, the expose by global news network Al-Jazeera linking the police to suspicious murders of Muslims clerics perceived to be sympathetic to Al Shabaab deeply embarrassed the Kenyan government.
A recent study by Anneli Botha from the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) suggests that such knee-jerk responses to terrorism are making the problem worse by inspiring a new cycle of radicalisation and violence.
“Leaders will continue to crack down hard on protests, introduce draconian anti-terror laws and use unjustified mass surveillance techniques in response to security threats,” said Salil Shetty, the secretary general of Amnesty International.
“But knee-jerk reactions do not work. Instead they create an environment of repression in which extremism can thrive,” he added.
In the tug-of-war between human rights norms and national security, authorities in Nairobi have long argued that the country will have to make a trade-off between security and liberty if the terrorists are to be defeated.
But Ms Wanyeki says there should not be any trade-off. “Security depends on our recognising and addressing the human-rights grievances that fuel and underlie insecurity,” she said.
According to her, counter-terror strategies that only deal with the tail end of the problem are insufficient. “Security depends on accountability and an end to impunity,” she added.
Elections
While in other countries in the region, authorities have intensified their campaigns to silence critical voices ahead of the elections.
Burundi and Tanzania are holding elections this year, Uganda has its presidential polls slated for 2016 while Rwanda in 2017.
President Pierre Nkurunzinza’s controversial bid for a third term has seen his administration severely restrict the rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
Authorities in Bujumbura have refused to grant opposition groups, the press and civil society organisations permission to hold meetings and peaceful demonstrations, Amnesty says.
Security forces respond to peaceful protests with excessive force and no investigations have been initiated into allegations of violence by the ruling party’s youth wing, Imbonerakure, on the pretext of maintaining security.
The Press Law enacted in mid 2013 has severely curtailed reporting by requiring journalists to reveal their sources and imposing heavy penalties on reporters covering national security issues.
Human rights activists are also routinely harassed and arrested. Last May, Pierre Clava Mbonimpa was detained and charged with threatening national security when he alleged that young Burundians were receiving military training in the DRC.
However, the trend to crackdown on civic spaces is not unique to Burundi alone.
In Uganda, Amnesty says authorities continue to use repressive and discriminatory legislation to stifle civil and political liberties.
The report also says that discrimination, harassment and violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people increased.
Violence against women remains widespread while state hostility towards civil society organisations and activists working on human rights, oil governance, corruption and land issues increased. Restrictions on freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association increased with the enactment of The Public Order Management Act (Poma) in November 2013.
The law gives the police broad powers to prohibit and disperse public gatherings of a political nature which security forces have used on a number of occasions to stop peaceful protests on unemployment, corruption and free elections.
Some transgender people have been stripped naked and paraded in front of the media while one was killed and another raped.
“The AHA legitimised abuses and violence against LGBTI people by non-state actors whose actions went largely unpunished,” Amnesty says in its report.
The regime in Kampala has also not spared the media as the 2016 presidential elections shape up. Journalists face increasing threats, intimidation and harassment from government officials and National Resistance Movement (NRM) party members.
According to the Kampala-based Foundation for Human Rights Initiative, more than 62 journalists were assaulted by the police in 2014.
In Rwanda, journalists, human rights activists and opposition politicians work in a repressive environment.
“Rwandans are unable to openly express critical views on issues perceived as sensitive by the authorities,” Amnesty says. As a result, the civil society is weak and activists are forced to take “a pro-government position in their work or employ self-censorship to avoid harassment by the authorities.”
Still dogged by allegations of assassinating dissidents abroad, Kigali last year rejected accusations by the US and the UK governments of unlawful detentions by the military intelligence.
While Tanzania has long been East Africa’s poster child for good governance for the West, the recent banning of The EastAfrican newspaper over a cartoon of President Jakaya Kikwete has put Dar es Salaam under international scrutiny.
Analysts have linked the move to the government’s campaign to muzzle the press ahead of the October polls.
In September 2013, Tanzania banned two widely-read newspapers, Mwananchi and Mtanzania, for allegedly publishing seditious articles.
Attacks on people with albinism also continue to dent the country’s image. At least five other attempted killings were reported. In one case, a man was killed as he defended his spouse.
Crackdowns on civil and political rights are also rife in Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Mauritania, Somalia, Swaziland, Togo, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
In other parts of Africa, state fragility, coupled with unresolved conflicts and the spiralling humanitarian crises continue haunt millions of people.
Violent conflict in the Central African Republic (CAR), South Sudan and Nigeria, and continuing wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan and Somalia breed the worst crimes committed by both governments and armed groups.
Amnesty says the international community needs to re-focus on these conflicts that have persisted for decades with a view to addressing the root causes of armed violence.
“Long-standing human rights grievances can propel populations to participate in armed conflict,” Ms Wanyeki told The EastAfrican.
“The options for intervention are many and do not start at the military end. Preventive diplomacy is the starting point,” she says.
While resolving these conflicts could greatly improve the human rights situation in Africa, the security forces and armed groups that commit international crimes are rarely held to account.
In a well organised campaign last year, Kenya rallied African countries to propose amendments to the Rome Statue, one of which seeks to protect heads of state and government from prosecution while in office.
But in a welcome move, 40 governments around the world have backed a proposal for the UN Security Council members to refrain from using their veto powers where international crimes are being committed.
