Servicemen are no rapists: Police rubbish KNCHR report

Following the release of Silhouettes of Brutality by the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), a report detailing how police raped women during the entirety of the electioneering period in 2017, The National Police Service has scoffed at the report saying that the claims are grossly inaccurate.

The service, in a statement to newsrooms faulted the report for what it described as lynching and maligning the agency’s reputation.

“We are surprised that the commission, for reasons unknown to us, is fond of making sensational, preposterous and generalised allegations about the Police without any actionable evidence that could form the basis of any further investigations,” the statement reads.

Instead, the service appealed to the commission to engage it in future in order to come up with reports that represent “accurate” documentation of what happens on the ground.

Silhouettes of Brutality details how security agents blatantly violated women sexually and assaulted their children as civil order was disrupted over disputes that arose after the announcement of the presidential results of the August 8 and the repeat presidential election.

KNHCR in the report said that the brazen sexual assaults first reached alarming levels on August 11, 2017 shortly after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Comission (IEBC) announced the presidential results of the August 8 general election.

READ: RAPED BY POLICE: HOW WOMEN SUFFERED DURING 2017 PRESIDENTIAL POLLS

“The commission’s hotline number 0800 720 627, which had been publicised for citizens to share human rights concerns rang off-the-hook. Members of the public from different parts of Kenya especially from Nairobi, Nyanza and Western regions made distress calls as protests broke out in the dark of night. Women were calling to seek help as protesters and security agents targeted them sexually violating them and their children,” KNCHR said in the report.