Passaris gives details of horrific encounter with the police

Esther alongside other Nasa members went to visit Former Machakos Senator Johnson Muthama at Pangani Police Station where she had to fight the police to find her way into premises.

She narrates the chilling of story of how the police in question held and fought her so that she could not get into the Police Station. Esther talks about how she was then informed that the police officer was part of a hit squad and might have even been responsible for Chris Msando’s death.

“And he says you are not getting in, it’s like you will see who I am. And he grabbed me…God. He held me, and he fought with me. And he was trying to throw me out, he got the gate locked on my leg. But the way he grabbed me, the way he held me, the way he tried to throw me out I asked myself what’s the point of being a legislator elected by 800,000 people but this policeman can actually grab me and hold me and manhandled me. You know for me it was like an assault.”

Her efforts to report the assault fell on deaf ears. The Nairobi women’s Representative explains how her attempts to report the incident to the other Pangani Officers resulted with her being moved from the reception to the OCS’ office to the gender desk where nobody wanted to write down her complaint.

“So I go in and said to the lady at the counter ‘I wanna file a complaint, I have been assaulted by a cop and she looks at me and says no, I go to the man on the counter and he says no go see the OCS. I go see the OCS and he says go to the back somebody will take your complaints at the gender desk. I go to the gender desk nobody is willing to write down my complaint. I tried that for almost 15-20 minutes, no one was interested and I thought to myself if this is the sign of things to come, we are in trouble…”

With a sore body to nurse she received two unexpected things, word that videos of her assault were making rounds on social media and a phone call, a few hours after she left Pangani, from the former Member of Parliament for Starehe- Maina Kamanda telling her that she was even lucky that they didn’t do more, they could have removed her panties.

In the audio Esther explains how scared she was by the level of impunity in the nation. She explained that if violence was to break out then it’s the women and children of the nation that would suffer. She blames the government for not doing anything to stop the police from abusing their power stating that it’s probably because the government needs the police to do their bidding and so they cast a blind eye.

She highlighted Baby Pendo and Samantha who were victims of police brutality in August.

She said,“I hope IPOA is doing to do something about all the people that lost their lives to the policemen’s brutality including baby Pendo and Samantha. But women we have a big task to talk to our sons, our husbands, our brothers, our fathers. If Kenya goes into chaos, it’s the women that will suffer, it’s our daughters that will suffer. All we ask is a free, fair, credible election.”

Here is the complete audio.

Nairobi Women's Representative, Esther Passaris Reveals Disturbing Encounter With Police