Security Bill reminiscent of Moi-era paranoia has no place in free Kenya

Members of the public give their opinions and recommendations on the security laws amendment bill, 2014 before the Parliamentary Committee on Administration and National Security chaired by Asman Kamama on December 10, 2014 at County Hall. At face value, the proposed amendments to security laws appear to be based on the need to make the country more secure. PHOTO | JEFF ANGOTE |

What you need to know:

  • However, closer examination reveals that the amendments are aimed, not so much at deterring terrorists, but preventing ordinary citizens from exercising many of their hard-won freedoms.
  • This amendment would even stop journalists from exposing malpractices, such as corruption, within the police service as permission to do so would have to be sought from the same police!
  • The Director General of Intelligence Services has also been given powers to authorise covert operations that would allow police to enter a place at will and install or remove anything they feel like installing or removing.

At face value, the proposed amendments to security laws appear to be based on the need to make the country more secure.

However, closer examination reveals that the amendments are aimed, not so much at deterring terrorists, but at preventing ordinary citizens from exercising many of their hard-won freedoms.

They will also make it more difficult for the media to publish information that is in the public interest and create an atmosphere of paranoia reminiscent of the Moi era.

In an attempt to gag the media, the Bill states that “any person who, without authorisation from the National Police Service, broadcasts any information which undermines investigations or security operations relating to terrorism commits an offence”.

This provision means that every time a journalist wants to publish information related to the security services’ anti-terror operations, he or she needs permission from the police.

Exposés, such as the recent one by Al Jazeera on Kenya’s “death squads”, would be considered crimes.

INVESTIGATIVE REPORTING JEOPARDIZED
This amendment would even stop journalists from exposing malpractices, such as corruption, within the police service as permission to do so would have to be sought from the same police!

Many sections of the Bill are vague in their definition of what constitutes an offence. For example, the Bill bans the publishing or distribution of “obscene, gory, or offensive material which is likely to cause fear or alarm to the general public or disturb public peace”. Using this definition, will pornography be construed as a security threat?

While I agree with the provision that photographs of victims of terrorist attacks should not be published without the consent of the victims or their next of kin as this would be in bad taste and could cause further pain to the victims’ families, the right to privacy set out in Article 31 of the Constitution that this amendment seeks to protect is violated by another section that says that national security organs “may intercept communication for the purposes of detecting, deterring and disrupting terrorism”.

Basically, this means that the security organs can tap into any person’s phone on the mere suspicion that the person is involved in terrorist activities. Journalists who make contact with Al-Shabaab or who secure interviews with its leaders could find themselves behind bars.

COVERT OPERATIONS
Reporters and editors who publish the identity of a member of the intelligence service without the approval of the Director-General of Intelligence also commit an offence.

In other words, practising journalism under these amendments could in itself constitute an offence.

The Director-General of Intelligence Services has also been given powers to authorise covert operations that would allow police to enter a place at will and install or remove anything they feel like installing or removing.

This amendment would essentially allow the police to plant evidence and even steal from suspects. Given the propensity of our police officers to extort bribes, is such a law really in the public interest?

Should the amendments not be stricter with police officers who violate citizens’ rights rather than give them more powers to do what they want?

THREAT TO SECURITY
As in the Moi era, the amendments make the possession of material that may be deemed “a threat to national security” an offence. Possessing such material could result in arrest and detention. It is not clear what the nature of this material might be.

Could my vintage copy of Das Kapital by Karl Marx be a threat to national security because it advocates a “dictatorship of the proletariat”? Will my signed copy of Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s Detained be considered a national threat as it exposes the paranoia of Jomo Kenyatta’s henchmen?

As an afterthought, or perhaps to appear to be gender-sensitive in light of the recent cases of stripping of women at matatu stands, the Bill has thrown in an amendment that states that a person who “intentionally insults the modesty of any person by intruding upon that person’s privacy or strips such a person is guilty of a felony”.

Hurrah! Finally we will have an anti-stripping law.

However, the right to privacy protected by this amendment is wrenched away by the majority of the other amendments in this repressive — and dare I say, sinister — Bill.