Kenyan police launch inquiry over attack on man during protest

Kenyan police authority have on Tuesday launched an internal investigation into the attack of a man by the police during election protest on Monday in Nairobi. Video footage of riot police beating and
kicking an unconscious man on the sidelines has caused public outrage.

In a protest by activist and supporters of the opposition on Monday, who say their leader will be denied a fair chance at next year’s election, saw police fired teargas and beat protesters with batons to stop them from storming the offices of the electoral commission in Nairobi.

The footage appeared to show policemen chasing a man and laid on him with truncheons and boots as he fled a building near the commission’s headquarters.

An officer attacked the man with such force that part of his body armor fell off. The footage also cut on record, the police sprinting away, leaving the young man limp and motionless on the ground.

The inspector general of police, Joseph Boinnet, in a statement, said: “I condemn the lawlessness visited on the public by rioters yesterday and an internal inquiry is under way to determine whether any police officer broke any law while quelling the riots.”

The Kenyan national commission on human rights said it had launched an investigation into the attacks, warning that the use of force by the state should only be a “last resort”.

“The commission is particularly dismayed by the gory scenes witnessed yesterday … where demonstrators who had already been subdued were subjected to gruesome violence by the police,” it said in a statement.

“When police disobey the law with such corrosive impunity, they lose legitimacy as law enforcers and alienate themselves from the very public they are mandated to serve.”