The “Truth” about Kenya: Connection and Contestation in the 1956 Kamiti Controversy

The Howard League and liberal colonial penality in mid‐20th‐century Britain: The death penalty in Palestine and the Kenya Emergency

“…In July 1956, a Howard League member asked the Executive Committee whether prison conditions in Kenya ‘fell within the scope of the League’ 20 . The issue of conditions in prison camps in Kenya had been debated in the House of Commons, following the publication of Eileen Fletcher's whistleblowing pamphlet The truth about Kenya in March 1956, which caused a ‘political firestorm’ (cited in Bruce‐Lockhart, 2015, p.816). Fletcher, a Quaker social worker with the Community Development and Welfare Department, designed the rehabilitation programme at the Kamiti Detention Camp for women and worked with juvenile girls in the camp as a ‘rehabilitation officer’.…”

“…She highlighted practices of hard labour and solitary confinement for girls who sang ‘Mau Mau’ songs. Fletcher attributed the high number of executions of Black Africans and discrepancies in justice between white and Black people to ‘white supremacy’ (Bruce‐Lockhart, 2015). In the House of Commons, Labour MP (and former Colonial Secretary), Howard League member and husband of Violet Creech Jones, Arthur Creech Jones, argued that confinement in the camps was essentially internment without trial and that lengthy and life sentences had been given to children.…”

“…In 1954, Brockway had founded the Movement for Colonial Freedom, which campaigned to end British colonialism. This group published Fletcher's pamphlet (Bruce‐Lockhart, 2015; Gopal, 2019).…”