Garissa activists urged to speak up on rights abuses

Human rights defenders in Garissa have been challenged to remain proactive in highlighting cases of enforced disappearances, kidnappings and all forms of human rights violations.

Abdihakim Shurie, Garissa county Muslims for Human Rights coordinator, reiterated the important role played by the rights defenders, saying that they remain the voice of the voiceless.

“In a society where we still experience many forms of human rights violations, there is need to have as many rights defenders as possible. Individuals who can stand up and be counted to defend the voiceless and downtrodden,” Abdihakim said.

There has been a steady increase of enforced disappearance in the county, something that has rattled political and religious leaders as well as rights activists.

Mohamed Shangalow, Mohamed Ibrahim, Idle Farah and Osman Yussuf, have been missing for four months now.

They were abducted on different dates.

Abdihakim was speaking at a Garissa hotel during a meeting that was convened by Muhuri aimed at training and equipping youth drawn from various parts of Garissa county to advocate and agitate for human right issues.

“This trend where our people are picked from their homes one by one by police officers and taken to an unknown destination then tortured only to be killed later is very saddening.

As young rights defenders, remain true to the course and do what you are supposed to do without fear,” he said.

He added that time has come for the government to avoid the doublespeak, saying that many a times President William Ruto has assured the country that extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearance would be a thing of the past but the same continues to happen.

“The current Kenya Kwanza government promised to put to an end to forced disappearance and extrajudicial killings of Muslims and Somalis across the region. It is one of the reasons why this region in particular overwhelmingly voted for President Ruto.”

Mursal Sahal, who was among those newly trained, said that there was no justification for the security apparatus to kidnap individuals on allegations of being linked to insecurity-related incidences only for the same person to disappear.

“We cannot continue to have rogue security officers who continue to pick up our people and disappear with them to unknown locations,” Sahal said.