Stephen Kinuthia Mwangi
Stephen Kinuthia Mwangi is the Administrative Coordinator for Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC), which is an initiative by young members of the community to promote social justice in Mathare. MSJC’s aims include the promotion of participatory forms of justice and it has organised a number of community forums which have focused on extrajudicial killings, land grabbing and political accountability. In May 2017, MSJC released a report titled “Who is Next? A Participatory Action Research Report Against the Normalization of Extrajudicial Executions in Mathare.”
While Kenya maintains the appearance of a country where the public space is open, specific categories of human rights defenders encounter a wide range of risks as a result of their work. These include human rights defenders and journalists working on highly sensitive corruption issues, those who document or contribute testimony on past violence (including the 2007/2008 post election violence and frequent extra-judicial killings by the police) as well as those using peaceful demonstrations as an advocacy tool.
Human rights defenders denouncing human rights violations committed by the police forces have continuously faced reprisals. Members of civil society organisations have been repeatedly arrested and subjected to ill-treatment while in detention, received threatening anonymous calls and some have undergone trials under accusations of “belonging to an illegal organisation” and “participation in an illegal protest.”
