Police must be held accountable for brutality at university

Anti-riot policemen arrest a University of Nairobi student after protests against the detention of ODM legislator Paul Ongili (Babu Owino) in Nairobi, Kenya, on September 28, 2017. PHOTO | COURTESY

What you need to know:

  • In one clip, students lying down outside the Prefab halls at the main campus labelled ‘4’, are beaten, amid a soundtrack of loud screams.
  • In another, students lie down inside what appears to be the ADD Building (Architecture Design and Development) while police give them a brutal working over with clubs.
  • A smart police force would have invested resources in photography and surveillance, to help with the real-time identification and arrest of lawbreakers.

The horrific footage of policemen beating up students that was recorded at the University of Nairobi on Wednesday should stir indignation in everybody who saw it.

In one clip, students lying down outside the Prefab halls at the main campus labelled ‘4’, are beaten, amid a soundtrack of loud screams. In another, students lie down inside what appears to be the ADD Building (Architecture Design and Development) while police give them a brutal working over with clubs.

Several things are clearly wrong with how the police in Kenya control riots and restore law and order. It is not to say that university students are a breed apart from other Kenyans.  Particularly worrying is that police appeared to beat people they had no intention of arresting.

IPOA

The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and the Independent Police Oversight Authority (Ipoa) have said they are looking into the matter.

It is not clear that every single student who was beaten by the police was involved in law-breaking, or was lawfully beaten according to the guidelines that govern the use of force by police, under the Sixth Schedule of the National Police Service Act, 2011.

A smart police force would have invested resources in photography and surveillance, to help with the real-time identification and arrest of lawbreakers.

Riot control is not a new craft and Nairobi is not the only city to have suffered incidents of mass disorder. Other police forces around the world manage to enforce the law without beating everyone they see.

MASS RIOTING

On June 15, 2011, mass rioting broke out in Vancouver, Canada the venue of Game 7 of the ice hockey Stanley Cup Finals between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins. Boston, the visiting team in a hockey-mad country, won the game, and with it, the Stanley Cup.

Looters among the Vancouver fans smashed the windows of shops and banks, looted merchandise and set a total of 15 vehicles on fire, including two police cars.

Police arrested 101 people that night, but it was what happened later that distinguished the Vancouver Police. They formed a team that reviewed footage to identify perpetrators.

According to the Vancouver Sun, they laid a total of 887 charges, against 301 people, many of whom escaped the scene. The last charges were laid in 2015, four years after the riot.

DEFEND RIGHTS

The University of Nairobi is also not blameless. To retain the confidence of both students and parents, it must engage the police more forcefully to defend the rights of its students in lecture halls, laboratories, halls of residence and libraries who stay away from demonstrations.

Students, while choosing universities, and parents before they pay tuition, must consider the risk of their children being brutally beaten up. They must ask the university what specific measures it is taking to ensure the safety of students.

The architectural school at the University of Nairobi (ADD) seems especially ill-fated when it comes to invasions by police.

LEGAL ACTION

That should serve notice to architectural schools at other universities, that they could attract architecture students who would otherwise choose the University of Nairobi. Perhaps that would incentivise the University of Nairobi to take up this matter more forcefully.

Lastly, legal action must be considered against the University of Nairobi and the National Police Service for the violations of human rights that were witnessed. The days when this cruelty was accepted without question are gone.

The writer is an online sub-editor at the Daily Nation