Case History: John Mulingwa
At approximately 12:30 am on 1 March 2015, human rights defender Mr John Mulingwa received an anonymous threatening call warning him to stop his investigation into an alleged extra-judicial killing or risk his life.
John Mulingwa, also known as Garang, is a community organiser and a member of Kamukunji Human Rights Defenders (KHRD), a grassroots organisation that documents and advocates against social injustice and human rights violations in the Kamukunji constituency, one of Nairobi's informal settlements. He also works as a human rights journalist for Ghetto Radio FM 89.5, a community radio station that attempts to give a voice to people living in Nairobi's slums, particularly the youth. The human rights defender has worked on issues of extra-judicial killings in Kenya since 2003.
At approximately 12:30 am on 1 March 2015, human rights defender Mr John Mulingwa received an anonymous threatening call warning him to stop his investigation into an alleged extra-judicial killing or risk his life.
In the call, an unidentified female caller reportedly stated, “You have to choose between this case you are working on and your own life, and decide which one is most important”. The human rights defender has been forced to abandon his usual residence, which is near the police station to which the officer suspected of involvement in the alleged extra-judicial killing is posted.
The incident that John Mulingwa has been investigating is a fatal shooting by police, on 25 February 2015, of a young person in Shauri Moyo, a slum in Nairobi. Soon after the killing, the human rights defender went to the scene of the incident to investigate. Reportedly, when a police officer saw him, the officer fired shots into the air and ran after John Mulingwa shouting, “Shika huyo mtu ya human rights” (catch that human rights person). The human rights defender was able to get away, and immediately made a broadcast on Ghetto Radio to alert the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) – a government institution overseeing internal discipline of members of police in Kenya. IPOA has allegedly commenced its own investigation into the shooting.
The threat came two weeks after unidentified persons contacted John Mulingwa through his friends to warn him against pursuing his investigation into the alleged killing by a police officer of a young man and his brother in Githurai – a Nairobi slum – in May 2013 and August 2014, respectively. As a result of civil society pressure, in September 2014, the police officer was arrested and taken into custody.
Human rights defenders working to combat impunity in cases of extra-judicial killings in Kenya face high risks. In March 2009, two prominent human rights defenders working on extra-judicial killings, Messrs Oscar King'ara and Paul Oulu were shot dead in their car near the State House in Nairobi. Six years after the killing, the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
