Maina Kiai

Maina Kiai

Kiai in 2013
Nationality Kenyan
Education University of Nairobi
Harvard Law School
Occupation Attorney & human rights activist
Organization Former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association
Awards Freedom House's Freedom Award (2014), United Nations Foundation's Leo Nevas Award (2016), AFL-CIO George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award (2016)

Maina Kiai is a Kenyan lawyer and human rights activist who formerly served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association. He took up his functions as Special Rapporteur on May 1, 2011, and completed his second and final term on April 30, 2017.[1]

Kiai is also active in human rights work in Kenya, where he has focused on combating corruption, supporting political reform, and fighting against impunity following post-election violence that engulfed Kenya in 2008.[1] He currently serves as co-director of the Kenyan NGO InformAction.[2]

Education, career, and awards

Kiai’s most prominent human rights work began in 1992, when he co-founded the unofficial Kenya Human Rights Commission. He served as the Commission’s executive director until September 1998.[3]

Kiai then moved on to become Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Program (1999-2001) and the Africa Director of the International Human Rights Law Group (now Global Rights, 2001-2003)[3] before finally serving as Chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission from 2003 to 2008.[4]

From July 2010 to April 2011, Kiai was the Executive Director of the International Council on Human Rights Policy. He has also held research fellowships at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, and the TransAfrica Forum.[1]

Kiai currently serves as director of the local Kenyan NGO InformAction, which uses a multimedia approach – primarily video production – to help educate Kenyans about their human rights.[4][5] He also writes a periodic column for the Daily Nation, Kenya’s largest daily-circulation newspaper.[6]

In 2014, Freedom House awarded Kiai its Freedom Award, an acknowledgment begun in 1943 "to extol recipients’ invaluable contribution to the cause of freedom and democracy."[7] Prior Freedom Award honorees include Chen Guangcheng, Aung San Suu Kyi, Vaclav Havel, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Medgar Evers, and Edward R. Murrow.

In October 2016, Kiai received the United Nations Foundation's Leo Nevas Award for his work as Special Rapporteur. The award recognizes "those who have served as agents of change in advancing international human rights."[8] In December 2016, he was awarded the 2016 AFL-CIO George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award for his "dedication to and effectiveness in highlighting the widespread denial of fundamental human rights at work and in society.".[9][10]

Kiai is a lawyer by profession, trained at Nairobi and Harvard Universities.[1]

Work as Special Rapporteur

Maina Kiai took up his functions as the first UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association on May 1, 2011.[1] He completed his second and final term on April 30, 2017, and was succeeded by Ms. Annalisa Ciampi of Italy. Special Rapporteurs are independent from any Government or organization and serve in their individual capacity.

As Special Rapporteur, Kiai authored or co-authored seven reports to the Human Rights Council on the subjects of:

Kiai also authored four reports to the UN General Assembly, on the subjects of:

Kiai also made nine official country visits, to Georgia (2012), the United Kingdom (2013 & 2016), Rwanda (Jan. 2014), Oman (Sept. 2014), Kazakhstan (Jan. 2015), Chile (Sept. 2015), the Republic of Korea (Jan. 2016) and the United States of America (July 2016).[29][30]

As Special Rapporteur, Kiai issued more than 190 press statements via OHCHR [31] and sent over 900 communications to UN member states.[32]

Kiai conducted the first ever official country visit to the United States by a UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association in July 2016.[33]

Retribution for human rights work

Kiai has been subjected to threats and harassment for his human rights work.

Most recently, in September 2013, Kiai reported that “thugs” had come to his mother’s homestead in Nyeri and threatened to burn it down.[34][35]

In 2008, Kiai was one among several human rights defenders who received death threats, as post-election violence raged in Kenya.[36] A coalition of Kenyan civil society groups reported that they had become aware of a plot involving "a five- or- so man elite squad that has been tasked with the liquidation of, inter alia, Maina Kiai, Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights."[37]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
  2. ↑ InformAction
  3. 1 2 International Commission of Jurists, Kenya Section
  4. 1 2 World Movement for Democracy
  5. ↑ InformAction website
  6. ↑ Daily Nation, Sept. 3, 2013, "KIAI: Season of madness as ICC trials begin"
  7. ↑ Freedom House
  8. ↑ Freeassembly.net
  9. ↑ Solidarity Center
  10. ↑ received the AFL-CIO George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award
  11. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/HRC/20/27
  12. ↑ Report via OHCHR Archived 2015-08-15 at the Wayback Machine.
  13. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/HRC/23/39"
  14. ↑ Report via OHCHR Archived 2016-03-05 at the Wayback Machine.
  15. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/HRC/26/29
  16. ↑ Report via OHCHR Archived 2016-03-25 at the Wayback Machine.
  17. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/HRC/29/25
  18. ↑ Report via OHCHR Archived 2015-09-27 at the Wayback Machine.
  19. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/HRC/29/25
  20. ↑ Report via OHCHR Archived 2016-03-21 at the Wayback Machine.
  21. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/HRC/32/36
  22. ↑ Report via OHCHR Archived 2016-06-24 at the Wayback Machine.
  23. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/HRC/35/28
  24. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/68/299"
  25. ↑ Report via OHCHR Archived 2016-03-24 at the Wayback Machine.
  26. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/69/365
  27. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/70/266
  28. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Report A/71/385
  29. ↑ Freeassembly.net, Country Reports
  30. ↑ OHCHR, Country Visits page
  31. ↑ OHCHR Press Statements
  32. ↑ OHCHR Reports
  33. ↑ Freedoms of assembly and association: UN expert announces first official visit to the USA
  34. ↑ Daily Nation, Sept. 20, 2013, "My Life in Danger over ICC Cases: Maina Kiai"
  35. ↑ Full Press Statement by Maina Kiai on Security Threats over ICC, Sept. 21, 2013
  36. ↑ Human Rights House
  37. ↑ Letter from Gladwell Otieno, Executive Director Africa Centre for Open Governance (AfriCOG)

See also

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