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Maina Kiai
Maina Kìai 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 from May 1, 2011, to April 30, 2017. Between 2018 and 2024, he headed Human Rights Watch's Alliances and Partnerships program.
Kìai 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.
Kìai'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.
Kìai 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) before finally serving as Chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission from 2003 to 2008.
From July 2010 to April 2011, Kìai 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.
Kiai co-founded the local Kenyan NGO InformAction in 2010 and co-directed it until 2019. This NGO uses a multimedia approach – primarily video production – to help educate Kenyans about their human rights. InformAction benefits from the support of the UNDP, the UNDEF on the Open Society Foundations. He formerly wrote a regular column for the Daily Nation, but resigned in 2018, citing alleged interference with publishing decisions by the government He now writes for the Standard (Kenya).
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." Prior Freedom Award honorees include Chen Guangcheng, Aung San Suu Kyi, Vaclav Havel, 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." 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."
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Maina Kiai
Maina Kìai 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 from May 1, 2011, to April 30, 2017. Between 2018 and 2024, he headed Human Rights Watch's Alliances and Partnerships program.
Kìai 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.
Kìai'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.
Kìai 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) before finally serving as Chairman of the Kenya National Human Rights Commission from 2003 to 2008.
From July 2010 to April 2011, Kìai 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.
Kiai co-founded the local Kenyan NGO InformAction in 2010 and co-directed it until 2019. This NGO uses a multimedia approach – primarily video production – to help educate Kenyans about their human rights. InformAction benefits from the support of the UNDP, the UNDEF on the Open Society Foundations. He formerly wrote a regular column for the Daily Nation, but resigned in 2018, citing alleged interference with publishing decisions by the government He now writes for the Standard (Kenya).
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." Prior Freedom Award honorees include Chen Guangcheng, Aung San Suu Kyi, Vaclav Havel, 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." 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."