ActionAid shares horrific experiences of police brutality during Kenya tax protests

June 28, 2024

ActionAid has shared shocking testimonies from young people who were brutalised in Kenya while protesting the Finance Bill.

Several youth activists affiliated with ActionAid Kenya were beaten, shot at, arrested, and teargassed at the hands of law enforcement agents.

ActionAid Ireland CEO, Karol Balfe, said:
“We support the urgent call from our ActionAid colleagues in Kenya for the government there to uphold the right to peaceful assembly, as guaranteed in the Kenyan constitution. Additionally, there must be accountability for the violence against young people in the past week, and, as international community, we must call for an immediate end to the violent clampdown of protesters and a transparent investigation into these disturbing events.”

While describing their personal experiences at the hands of the security services to ActionAid Kenya staff, young people raise concerns about a blatant disregard for constitutional freedoms and fundamental rights.

Faith* a 26-year-old from Nairobi:
“Tuesday 25th June was the day we saw the full wrath of the police. The protestors were peaceful, but the police used so much force and a lot of people were killed; more than what the government is reporting. I went to the hospital for a brief period because I inhaled so much tear gas and was having difficulty breathing.

Currently, I am afraid of being abducted because I have been vocal on issues of governance and accountability. The reality of this is so close to home after a very close friend of mine was also abducted, but he has been released.

What I saw in the streets was not a government that wanted to listen but kill its people. Our only crime was to exercise our constitutional right to protest and demand better from our government.”

Bruce* a 30-year-old from Dandora:
“I never thought I would live to see the day when our government would set the police and military on us for simply exercising our constitutional right to protest. I am still shaken at the sight of unarmed and innocent civilians being beaten like criminals, not citizens. We were just asking to be heard, for a better future. Now, all I feel is anger and despair.

So many of my friends sustained injuries from the clashes with the security forces, luckily, I was not hurt myself, so I am helping to coordinate medical care for my injured colleagues.

We need the government to come out and account for their actions.”

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.

ActionAid shares horrific experiences of police brutality during Kenya tax protests

ActionAid has shared shocking testimonies from young people who were brutalised in Kenya while protesting the Finance Bill.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

The Global Human Impact

The Risk of Inaction

About This Research

Summary of Recommendations

Further reading

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