NAIROBI, Kenya, Feb 18- The National Victims and Survivors Network- an umbrella body bringing together victims of Nyayo house torture chambers- has called on Interior Cabinet Secretary Dr Fred Matiangi to revoke the legal notice No.11 of 1991, that declared the place a protected area.
This, the organization says, will pave way for the former torture chamber, used during the tenure of the late President Daniel Arap Moi, to be converted into a national monument.
Despite earlier commitments by the government including by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga, the place remains inaccessible to the survivors, families and Kenyans.
In 2010, Odinga who is also a survivor, said the chambers were to be converted into a human rights museum, but that has never happened.
“Further, there is a recommendation made in the report of the Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, gazetted in March 2019, regarding the conversion of the former torture chambers into a national monument,” the network coordinator Wachira Waheire said.
He spoke on Thursday after visiting the chambers, to mark the 18th anniversary since they were opened to the public.
Notably, President Uhuru Kenyatta in his 2015 State of the Nation Address, apologized for the wrongs committed by the Kenyan government and ordered a Sh10 billion Restorative fund for past human rights violations.
Waheire said the fund should be used to also convert the chambers into a national museum.
But that can only happen if the legal notice declaring the chambers and three floors of the building as protected areas.
“The order was a belated attempt at justifying and shielding the illegal detention and torture of many innocent Kenyans taking place there at the time,” he said.
The network has since written a letter to CS Matiangi, urging him to vacate the legal notice.
About 2,000 people are said to have been tortured in the chambers during Moi’s 24 year-rule.
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