LGBTI PEOPLE’S RIGHTS LGBTI people faced discrimination, KENYA marginalization and physical attacks from state and non-state actors. Republic of Kenya In May, Zhanar Sekerbayeva and Gulzada Head of state and government: Uhuru Muigai Kenyatta Serzhan, founders of the queer feminist collective, Feminita, were physically attacked Police used excessive and sometimes lethal and abused by an angry mob when they force to break up protests; they unlawfully attempted to hold a human rights conference killed 167 people, including some of those at a hotel in Shymkent. Police officers failed arrested for violating Covid-19 restrictions, to protect their right to peaceful assembly and forcibly disappeared 33 people. and forcibly detained them, later claiming Incidents of gender-based violence, that they were detained for their own primarily against women and girls, protection. After the hotel cancelled their increased. Courts affirmed the right to booking, they moved to a nearby cafe where housing, but government agencies flouted a an angry mob of men attacked them and presidential moratorium on evictions during punched Zhanar Sekerbayeva in the face. the pandemic. A group of LGBTI refugees Police officers were in the mob and in video and asylum seekers were attacked in footage can be seen forcing the two activists Kakuma refugee camp. No one was brought into police cars. In Karaganda on 28 July, to justice for the killing of environmental both activists were again attacked by an activist Joannah Stutchbury in July. angry mob when they tried to hold a women’s BACKGROUND rights conference. Neither incident had been investigated by the police by the end of the The government continued to impose a year. curfew and restrictions on movement and public gatherings to curtail the spread of REFUGEES’ AND MIGRANTS’ RIGHTS Covid-19. Ethnic Kazakhs fleeing Xinjian in China faced The authorities granted citizenship to 1,649 criminal prosecution and imprisonment for members of the Shona community in July, crossing the border irregularly, as well as ending decades of statelessness. The Shona discrimination, inadequate protection, and migrated to Kenya from Southern Africa in administrative hurdles, including needing to 1959 as missionaries but, following Kenya’s renew their documents annually and not independence in 1963, were never registered having the right to travel abroad. In April, as citizens. An additional 1,200 people of three ethnic Kazakhs who had fled from Rwandan descent, who migrated to Kenya for Xinjiang were denied citizenship on the work during the colonial period, and 58 grounds that they had crossed the border people of Asian descent, were also granted irregularly. citizenship. In September, parliament recognized the Pemba community as an 1. Kazakhstan: Prisoner of Conscience Maks Bokaev Released but Indigenous community. These steps added to Restrictions Must be Lifted (Index: EUR 57/3625/2021), 4 February progress already made by Kenya over several 2. “Kazakhstan: Four activists’ mobile devices infected with Pegasus years to end statelessness for everyone. In 2016, 1,500 members of the Makonde spyware”, 9 December community, who migrated from Mozambique, were also granted citizenship. EXCESSIVE USE OF FORCE The brutal response by police officers to protests resulted in human rights violations against demonstrators. While Covid-19 Amnesty International Report 2021/22 220