Nairobi, Kenya – On the afternoon of August 19, brothers Jamil and Aslam Longton had simply had lunch at residence and had been heading again to work on the cybercafe they run in Kitengela city, on the outskirts of Nairobi, once they seen somebody suspicious.
A girl was loitering exterior their entrance gate, speaking on her cell phone, simply as she had been doing in the identical location once they first left for work that morning.
The brothers obtained of their automobile to go away, however a couple of yards down the highway the lady, along with two males, blocked their manner with a number of autos. They approached the automobile and pulled Aslam from the driving force’s seat. The 36-year-old had been a vocal participant within the antigovernment protests that not too long ago shook the nation.
Though they had been in plain garments, Jamil, 42, informed Al Jazeera he believed the closely armed group that approached them had been police, pointing to a wave of abductions of political dissidents in Kenya which rights teams say is being carried out by state brokers, and a warning he had obtained.
Lower than two weeks earlier than the incident, Jamil, who can also be a human rights activist, mentioned a high safety official within the space referred to as him and informed him to warn his brother by no means to attend protests once more. If Aslam did, “they may hurt him”, the caller mentioned.
Because the armed males grabbed Aslam from the automobile that day, shoving him into their ready SUV, Jamil dashed out, asking the group for proof of their id and demanding to know whether or not it was a authorized arrest.
Once they refused to reply, Jamil threatened to name the native police station. “Noticing my seriousness, in addition they grabbed me and compelled me into the automobile, blindfolded us, and drove in direction of town and round so we couldn’t comprehend our location,” he mentioned.
The brothers say they had been held in a darkish room for 32 days the place they had been crushed and threatened with loss of life if they didn’t reveal details about who funded the native protests in Kitengela.
“They might solely open the room each 24 hours to offer us a small portion of ugali [maize meal] and would solely give us 500ml of water as soon as each 24 hours … [and] offered a small can that might be our rest room,” Jamil informed Al Jazeera.
Finally, the abductors blindfolded the brothers earlier than driving them to a small city 14km (8.7 miles) north of Nairobi, referred to as Gachie, the place they deserted them. The 2 later discovered that one in all their associates, additionally a protester, had additionally been kidnapped and launched.
Incidents like this have been on the rise in recent times, concentrating on each locals and foreigners, with the Kenya Nationwide Fee on Human Rights (KNCHR) pointing to a “worrying sample of abductions in a number of components of our nation”.
Because the youth protest motion towards the federal government erupted in June 2024, residents and rights teams say abductions have escalated.
Since then, there have been 82 instances of abductions and enforced disappearances with 29 folks nonetheless lacking, in accordance with KNCHR. “These kidnapped have been vocal dissidents,” the rights watchdog mentioned.
Protesters focused
Through the 2024 protests, Kenyan youth took to the streets demanding political and financial reforms after President William Ruto launched a controversial finance invoice, which might have seen the prices of primary items rise steeply. The weeks of protests had been met with a heavy-handed crackdown by safety forces wherein dozens of individuals had been killed.
Ruto ultimately revoked the invoice and the protests eased, however many took their dissent on-line. Rights teams say protesters and social media activists have continued to be tracked and harassed – and worse.
Human Rights Watch (HRW), which investigated the abductions, spoke to witnesses and survivors who mentioned safety officers – normally in civilian clothes with their faces hid and driving unmarked vehicles – forcibly disappeared protesters and even killed some perceived protest leaders.
HRW analysis discovered that the officers implicated within the abductions originated from agencies of the Kenyan Nationwide Police Service, such because the Directorate of Felony Investigations, the Anti-Terrorism Police Unit, and the Nationwide Intelligence Service.
Nonetheless, Kenya’s authorities and legislation enforcement businesses have denied any involvement within the abductions. The Nationwide Police Service didn’t reply to Al Jazeera’s requests over e mail for remark concerning accusations of police involvement in enforced disappearances, whereas police spokesperson Michael Muchiri solely mentioned in a WhatsApp message that the function of the police “is to cope with all types of criminality” and that “police have handled any of the reported instances with the suitable and deserved consideration”.
Though President Ruto, who beforehand referred to as stories of abductions in Kenya “faux information”, lastly acknowledged the difficulty in December and promised to sort out it, he didn’t settle for authorities culpability.
“What has been mentioned about abductions, we are going to cease them so Kenyan youth can dwell in peace,” he mentioned at a stadium in Homa Bay, in western Kenya. However he additionally informed dad and mom to “take accountability” for his or her kids, in an obvious reference to youth protesters.
The month earlier than, Ruto had addressed abductions in his annual state of the nation speech, condemning “any extreme or extrajudicial” motion. Nonetheless, he mentioned many detentions had been respectable arrests towards “criminals and subversive components”.
In an interview with Al Jazeera’s Head to Head final week, Kimani Ichung’wah, the bulk chief of the Kenyan Nationwide Meeting, repeated the federal government line that there are “felony components which have been concerned” within the protests, additionally telling host Mehdi Hasan: “I don’t consider there are enforced disappearances perpetrated by the state in Kenya, not at the present time.”
Civil society teams have, nevertheless, criticised Ichung’wah’s previous feedback on the matter – together with allegedly spreading false claims that abductees are faking their very own kidnappings for monetary achieve – whereas the Kenya Human Rights Fee referred to as for his resignation.
In keeping with the State of Nationwide Safety annual report Ruto tabled in parliament in November, Kenya had already seen a 44 p.c enhance in abductions between September 2023 and August 2024, with the nation recording 52 abductions in contrast with 36 throughout the identical interval the earlier 12 months.
Rights teams involved
“There’s a public outcry about abductions. A number of the kidnapped are turning up lifeless, and the state is doing nothing to cease it or shield the folks,” Otsieno Namwaya, East Africa director at HRW, informed Al Jazeera.
“We now have proof suggesting that those that are abducting protesters and authorities critics are literally state brokers,” Otsieno mentioned. He added that peaceable conferences have been “disrupted violently by the police” and even residents complaining about primary well being and social points are “being kidnapped or arrested like they’d dedicated some critical crime”.
Otsieno mentioned the abductions are “very worrying”.
Amnesty Worldwide Kenya, which has partnered with different rights teams and our bodies to offer assist and authorized illustration to greater than 1,500 protesters, can also be involved in regards to the “extreme drive and violence throughout protests” in addition to the abductions.
“We now have publicly advocated for the discharge of kidnapped people, organised impartial postmortems, and supported strategic litigation on habeas corpus instances that appeared to contain enforced disappearances,” mentioned Houghton Irungu, Amnesty Kenya’s govt director, calling the instances of enforced disappearances and lacking folks “tragic” for the nation.
“It has led to the downgrading of Kenya’s democracy beneath the CIVICUS International Monitor,” he informed Al Jazeera, referring to the alliance of civil society organisations monitoring civic freedoms.
“State violence should not be the response to residents’ dissatisfaction or requires accountability and responsive governance. The Kenyan authorities should return to the trail of adherence to constitutionalism and worldwide human rights legislation.”
Irungu argued that if Kenya fails to uphold each nationwide and worldwide human rights requirements, this might have an effect on its worldwide standing, together with on our bodies just like the United Nations Human Rights Council and the African Union.
“Kenya is on a really harmful trajectory, a really slippery slope, and it doesn’t appear like the federal government in the mean time values human rights,” HRW’s Otsieno mentioned.
He pointed to the Kenyan abductees as indicative of this but in addition “cross-border abductions”, which he mentioned have been a difficulty of concern for HRW for years.
“We now have seen South Sudanese kidnapped and renditioned again to South Sudan, the place they’ve been killed. We now have seen Ethiopians kidnapped and brought again to Ethiopia. We now have seen Congolese kidnapped right here and brought again to Congo, and we’ve seen Ugandans now being kidnapped right here and brought again to Uganda.
“This complete operation contravenes Kenya’s worldwide obligations.”
Foreigners kidnapped
Maria Sarungi Tsehai, a Tanzanian journalist and human rights activist dwelling in Nairobi, is among the many foreigners who’ve discovered themselves snatched off Kenya’s streets.
She was leaving a salon in an upmarket a part of Nairobi one afternoon in January when she seen a girl watching her. Sarungi ordered an app-hailing cab, however when it arrived and she or he obtained in, two males opened the door and dragged her out, forcing her right into a ready van the place they blindfolded her earlier than driving off.
“I panicked,” she informed Al Jazeera.
Sarungi used to run a tv station in Tanzania, however after a authorities crackdown on impartial media and different organisations with dissenting views, she was pressured to close down. She then moved to Kenya in 2020 and has continued her work, together with writing on governance and political repression in Tanzania.
She believes her abduction was as a result of her criticism of the Tanzanian authorities. Whereas she was being held within the transferring automobile, her captors tried to drive her to offer them her passcodes to entry the cell phone she makes use of for her activism work and to contact whistleblowers. One captor spoke in Swahili with what she may hear was a Tanzanian accent.
After Sarungi was deserted on a darkened avenue 4 hours after being taken, a pal despatched her a screenshot of a message thread from a WhatsApp group chat the place members of Tanzania’s ruling Chama Cha Mapinduzi (CCM) celebration had been discussing her.
“After my abduction, I obtained [sent] a chat from the celebration’s WhatsApp group the place a member rejoiced [effectively] saying, we pulled this off,” Sarungi mentioned. Screenshots from the group chat had been additionally leaked and shared by rights activists on social media.
Sarungi is satisfied that authorities in Tanzania and Kenya had been concerned in or a minimum of conscious of her kidnapping that day. She says, throughout her ordeal, her captors stopped at what seemed like a police checkpoint and believes they’d not have made it by way of if the police weren’t on board with what was taking place. Together with reaching out to the Kenyan Nationwide Police Service, Al Jazeera additionally contacted the Tanzanian police about Sarungi’s abduction. Neither responded.
Different foreigners have additionally been taken from Kenyan streets, with some handed over to their opponents again of their residence international locations. This consists of Ugandan opposition chief Kizza Besigye, whose attorneys say he was kidnapped in Nairobi in November and brought again to Kampala, the place he’s now in prison. In July, 36 members of Besigye’s celebration had been additionally kidnapped. They had been arrested by Kenyan police and handed over to their Ugandan counterparts and subsequently indicted on terrorism-related fees.
‘Secret unit’
Although Kenyan authorities proceed to disclaim involvement in or information about enforced disappearances, some feedback by senior officers have been revealing.
In December, Kenya’s former Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua, who fell out with Ruto final 12 months over accusations of supporting the youth protests and was impeached, mentioned “abducting younger folks shouldn’t be an answer” and alleged {that a} secret unit was behind disappearances within the nation.
“There’s a unit that’s not beneath the command of the IG [inspector general] of police. There’s a constructing in Nairobi, the twenty first ground on the metropolis centre, the place the unit is working from, led by … a cousin to a really senior official on this authorities,” Gachagua informed reporters in December.
Then on January 15, Justin Muturi, the cupboard secretary for public service, mentioned his son Leslie Muturi was kidnapped throughout final 12 months’s antigovernment protests, and claimed his abduction was carried out by the Nationwide Intelligence Service (NIS).
In an announcement made to the Directorate of Felony Investigations, Muturi mentioned he went to see President Ruto after his son was taken. Ruto then referred to as the NIS, after which Leslie was launched, his assertion added.
On January 30, Nationwide Police Service Inspector Common Douglas Kanja and Director of Felony Investigations Mohammed Amin had been summoned to court docket to reply questions on the whereabouts of three youths – Justus Mutumwa, Martin Mwau, and Karani Muema – who had been kidnapped in mid-December in Mlolongo, a couple of kilometres exterior Nairobi.
Kanja informed the court docket that the three weren’t in police custody and their whereabouts had been unknown.
A number of hours later, nevertheless, Mutumwa’s physique was situated at a metropolis morgue. Quickly after, Mwau’s physique was additionally discovered on the identical morgue. Muema continues to be lacking.
Activists and human rights attorneys mentioned this raised questions on authorities’ competence and whether or not they had been being absolutely sincere with the general public.
“The IG and DCI director got here to court docket and mentioned they don’t know but fingerprints had been taken and the physique recognized. It both signifies that they aren’t speaking to one another or they don’t have management over totally different businesses beneath the Nationwide Police Service, or they’re mendacity to Kenyans,” mentioned Religion Odhiambo, the president of the Regulation Society of Kenya (LSK).
Kenyans and overseas nationals within the nation are involved for his or her security, with blatant daytime abductions being carried out in public. But when IG Kanja appeared in court docket in January, he assured folks that Kenya was secure.
“Your honour, I need to let the folks of Kenya know they’re secure. We now have simply come from the festive season, and all through your entire season, folks loved Christmas as a result of this nation is secure. So, I need to guarantee you that we’re secure,” he mentioned.
In the meantime, in Kitengela, the Longton brothers are nonetheless reeling from their month in captivity. They mentioned, after enduring torture and trauma, they’re now being adopted by safety brokers.
Jamil, who’s chairman of an area organisation referred to as Kajiado County Human Rights Defenders, mentioned regardless of the threats Kenyans face from the federal government, he encourages folks to embrace their democratic proper to protest.
“They used threats to say we must always not go on protests once more, and even come to the media as a result of they’d end us, however that was only a software,” he mentioned. “Each different Kenyan as a patriot will train their constitutional proper to picket and protest if they’re unhappy.”
In Nairobi, Tanzanian activist Sarungi stays shaken.
The kidnapping incident has made her extra cautious in her day by day life in Kenya, but it surely has not damaged her dedication to hunt a greater society. She won’t be silenced, she mentioned.
“If we grow to be silent, that’s what they need us to do. Is there a value to pay? Sure. Does it imply that I cannot dwell my life freely like earlier than? Sure. However that won’t cease us from calling out the dangerous governance we see in our society.”
