• World Report 2012: Kenya
    Jan 22, 2012
    Human rights developments in Kenya were dominated by the implementation of a new constitution and related judicial and police reforms, and the International Criminal Court (ICC) cases against six Kenyans whom the ICC prosecutor accused of crimes against humanity. The alleged crimes were committed during Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007 and 2008. Kenyan politicians resisted the ICC process, claiming the judicial and police reforms underway gave sufficient cause to return the cases to Kenya. But there was little progress on the ground in terms of accountability for post-election violence or human rights violations by security forces.
  • World Report 2011: Kenya
    Jan 24, 2011
    In a historic move, Kenya’s citizens voted overwhelmingly in favor of accountability and reform when they supported a new constitution by a two-thirds majority in August 2010. Constitutional reform was among the steps to which the coalition government agreed after the 2007 post-election violence. It paves the way for restructuring the government, establishing a land commission, and carrying out sweeping changes to the police and judiciary. The year also saw the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court open an investigation into the post-election violence. Kenya continues to suffer the regional effects of Somalia’s crisis, with a steady flow of refugees entering the country; some suffered serious abuses at the hands of Kenyan police as they tried to find safety.
  • Kenya
    Jan 20, 2010

    A damning United Nations report on widespread abuses by, and impunity of, the security forces was followed by the police commissioner's removal in August, but incidents of extrajudicial killings and excessive use of force by police and military continued unchecked in 2009. There were also renewed reports of systematic torture and mistreatment of civilians during disarmament operations. Kenya's coalition government, formed in the wake of the flawed 2007 general elections, made little progress in implementing promised reforms.

  • Kenya
    Jan 14, 2009
    Controversial presidential elections in December 2007 dominated events in 2008, exposing the longstanding lack of accountability in Kenyan political culture.
  • Kenya
    Jan 30, 2005
    Only two years after the election of the National Rainbow Coalition Party (NARC), after twenty-four years of autocratic rule by President Moi, the public euphoria that greeted its entry into power began to wane. The record of the Mwai Kibaki government has been a source of both hope and disappointment. The current human rights situation in Kenya is one of few serious abuses. However, the potential is growing for serious problems in the future as much of the repressive state machinery from the Moi era remains intact. And while this government has made some commendable steps to address human rights concerns, it has demonstrated insufficient willingness to commit to any institutional changes that would fundamentally limit the extensive presidential and executive powers it inherited.