2009
I am a 38-year old Kenyan. I have always believed in the principles of individual freedom, equal opportunity and the entrepreneurial spirit that fosters sustainable and equitable economic development. During my days at Kenyatta University, I was involved in active students’ leadership and served as the Chairman of the Students’ Union. As a result of this engagement in student activism at a time when genuine criticism was viewed as open defiance to the government, I was expelled from the University in 1995. I was only able to resume studies in 2003 following an unconditional amnesty granted all expellees by the NARC Government. I eventually graduated in 2005 with a Bachelors Degree (Hons) in Political Science.
Since 1995, I have engaged with the human rights and constitutional reform movement in Kenya as part of the larger democratization effort particularly focusing on the realization of the civil and political liberties of the Kenyan people. I have worked with several civil society organizations, particularly those that have been instrumental in spearheading the democratization and constitutional reform process in the country. I gained valuable experience in enabling people’s participation in governance processes. I served in capacities that entailed implementing human rights education strategies, advocating for the entrenchment of basic needs as basic rights and engagement with communities on a broad range of participatory training approaches.
In 2007, I joined the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) – a statutory body - to work on its campaign against impunity. This campaign focused on the issue of extra-judicial killings by an elite anti-crime police unit constituted to deal with rising crime levels. The project entailed investigating and documenting information on the arrest and disappearance of suspects under police custody including participating in several missions within Nairobi in search of disappeared suspects.
Killings by police in Kenya are systematic, widespread and carefully planned and committed at will and with utter impunity by death squads.
We released our findings in a report called the ‘CRY OF BLOOD - MUNGIKI KILLINGS’ in September 2008, which concluded that killings by police in Kenya are systematic, widespread and carefully planned and committed at will and with utter impunity by death squads set up upon the orders of senior police officials to exterminate the Mungiki. Immediately afterwards, my colleagues and I started receiving anonymous phone calls threatening us with death for what was termed as ‘tainting the image of the police force abroad’ and our mobile phones communication henceforth became continuously monitored.
The local and international outrage that ensued after the release of our report prompted the UN Special Rapportuer on Extra-Judicial Killings, Prof. Philip Alston, to conduct a ten-day country visit to Kenya (15 th – 25 th February, 2009) at the conclusion of which he largely corroborated our previous findings in his preliminary report which he released before leaving the country. He called for the resignation or sacking of the Police Commissioner under whose watch these egregious human rights violations were taking place and of the Attorney General, whom he called ‘the embodiment in Kenya of the phenomenon of impunity’.
On 5 th March, 2009, the Executive Director and a Program Officer with the Oscar Foundation, were murdered in cold blood in their vehicle as they drove along the streets of the capital, Nairobi. They had been involved in similar investigations and had received the same threats as I had. The hate phone calls and threats to my person intensified. I knew I was in real danger, and went into hiding. It is from here that I came to York.
I am excited to be here as this Fellowship gives me opportunity to establish useful contacts and networks with significant stakeholders in the field of promotion and protection of human rights defenders. I will also seek opportunity to undertake inquiry on the effectiveness of the implementation of the EU Guidelines on human rights defenders in third countries with the aim of enhancing the protection of human rights defenders within the context of the European Union’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.
The Fellowship also affords me an opportunity to reflect on my human rights work and recuperate from the exhaustion of traumatic experiences. It is therefore with great optimism that I look forward to participating fully in the fellowship and returning home a rejuvenated individual to continue with my human rights work.
2014
Njoroge has worked extensively in both Kenya and Uganda. Specialising in both civil and political rights, Njoroge's work focuses on constitutional reform in order to further the democratization of Kenya through the promotion of political participation. Joining the fellowship scheme at the Centre of Applied Human Rights at the University of York in 2009/2010, Njoroge returned later in 2011 to gain a Master’s degree in Applied Human Rights, which has led him on to new projects and job prospects.
The fellowship scheme was incredibly important for Njoroge as the opportunity presented itself at a time of great stress. The abuse of surveillance is one problem faced by many human rights defenders, and affected Njoroge when he was working on a project just before he arrived in York. Thus York provided a sanctuary for him when he needed a break from the sometimes traumatising work involved in human rights activism. Njoroge applied for the scheme while under protection in Uganda, and York allowed him the respite and time away from his experiences, which greatly benefited him. The scheme also allowed Njoroge to speak and work with a diverse set of people, learning about human rights activism in different countries and creating a network of transnational contacts within the field. This greatly influenced his personal project which entailed reviewing the impact the EU Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders had on different people, by contacting EU member countries’ embassies in the East and Horn of Africa Region. The reach was minimal as it was not implemented in many countries and there was a lack of awareness on the existence of such mechanisms available to HRDs. Njoroge himself was not familiar with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders adopted in 1998 by the time he sought protection in 2009 and this happens to be the case with many Human Rights Defenders across the world.
It's good to know that what you are doing is important and right, [it] makes you feel that you are not alone.
This personal project enabled Njoroge to learn about protection for human rights defenders and allowed him to focus on new aims for expanding the awareness of mechanisms and instruments that the international community has in place. Consequently since leaving York, Njoroge has worked alongside the Kenyan National Coalition on Human Rights Defenders by facilitating training workshops on thematic areas such as safety and security of HRDs, and security management for CSOs among other issues.
Through his renewed understanding of human rights and enhanced skills, Njoroge proceeded to work with Freedom House as Senior Programme Officer for Africa based in Kampala, Uganda, chiefly as a technical advisor to the African Centre for Justice and Peace Studies (ACJPS) - a network of Sudanese human rights groups. Among his major achievements in this posting was conducting trainings on human rights monitoring and documentation as well as the development of Standard Operating Procedures for the ACJPS' Sudan in-country human rights monitors’ network. This has enabled the network to document human rights abuses in the conflict torn states of Darfur and Southern Kordofan and transmit the data to the off-shore secretariat for analysis and dissemination to aid international advocacy on the situation in Sudan without detection by the hawkish state security apparatus.
Njoroge credits the project management skills he acquired at the Bond training workshops that he received during the fellowship with his successes working with Freedom House which will be valuable in the long haul.
Back in Kenya at the beginning of 2013, Njoroge put to use his campaigning and advocacy skills to galvanize Kenyan civil society organisations' opposition to a new law – Public Benefits Organizations Act 2013 – which seeks to change the legal regime under which both local NGOs and INGOs would be governed. Critical to this regime change was the political push to regulate the activities of NGOs by placing a ceiling on the funding they can procure from foreign sources. The initiative is still ongoing but the government has put on hold the implementation of the law.
In all of these projects, Njoroge has been significantly aided by the fellowship scheme and the benefits gained. Njoroge in particular loved working and interacting with the other defenders and the master's students. He phrased this as "good to know that what you are doing is important and right, [it] makes you feel that you are not alone". Also the enhancement of skills and networking has led to a greater exposure of his work in the field of human rights.
Njoroge's current goal is to empower communities from a socio-economic perspective through grassroots level political participation to empower local communities to participate in decisions that directly affect them. By so doing, he hopes to shift the role of vulnerable grassroots communities from victimized recipients of charity to empowered and effective leaders who are able to place their human rights and developmental demands at the doorsteps of the duty bearers. This, Njoroge hopes, will allow him to have more of a voice in the governmental system of Kenya.
Njoroge was interviewed by Bethany Dunning (student, Department of Politics) in June 2014.
