They Tried to Silence Him. Instead, He Became Their Voice.

Surrounded by six men wanting to kill him, Peter Komora thought his last day had arrived. He tried to convince them to spare his life. And while they deliberated, Peter was waiting in the middle. Finally, they decided to let him go. The vote to kill him ended in a tie—three for, three against.

Peter Komora works as a human rights defender, protecting the environment in his district in costal Kenya. The area is heavily exploited by salt mining companies, evicting residents, polluting the water, and digging up ancestral ground.

One day Peter found himself surrounded by six men. They all worked as drivers and feared Peter’s campaigning, to get a salt mining company to do an environmental impact analysis before starting operations in his community, would cost them potential jobs at the company.

“Right then and there my mind went blank. I forgot everything I knew about safety strategies,” Peter recalls.

He tried to explain to them that he didn’t want to stop the company from mining salt, he just wanted them to do it properly, and after having conducted a mandatory environmental impact assessment.

“Right then and there my mind went blank. I forgot everything I knew about safety strategies.”

Three of the men still wanted to kill him, but ultimately, they let him go. Later that night, however, some of them broke into his empty home, searching for him again. Anticipating danger, Peter had already sent his wife and two children to stay with relatives and taken shelter at a friend’s house.

Peter stayed in another village for three weeks and a dialogue was initiated between him, the police, the salt mine company, and the drivers. The mediation resulted in Peter being able to move back from his temporary safe house, and for the company to conduct the environmental impact assessment.

And what became of the men who tried to kill Peter?

One day, a group of men arrived at Peter’s office. They were seeking his help. An issue had arisen: workers were not being supplied with fresh water nor protective gear.

“They came to my office saying they had been referred to me by a man called ‘Zinta’,” Peter recounts.

The men explained that they had heard Peter was someone who could hold people accountable and perhaps push the company to meet their needs. Ironically, the man who had referred them—Zinta—was one of the drivers once tasked with killing Peter.

This time, Peter organised a forum where both the company and the workers could voice their concerns. And it worked.

“Change came,” Peter says. “This has built a lot of trust between me and the community. And with my former aggressors as well.”

Peter has Civil Rights Defender’s security alarm

Since 2016, Peter Komora is part of Civil Rights Defenders security alarm system, the Natalia Project. With the push of a button, he can call for help in emergencies like the one described above. This support has made him feel safer.

“I haven’t been in a situation where I needed to push the alarm button myself, but I have responded to it. On of my colleagues had issues with one of the salt companies because he wanted to reclaim his land. Security workers within the salt company came to his home wanting to beat him up. He pressed the security alarm. I got the alert and called a motorcycle driver to go there. It was so fast; it took less than twenty minutes to get to his house. When I got there were already a lot of friends with him. There were thirty people with him, versus the three security guards.”

“The Natalia Project is a very prominent gadget for human rights defenders to have,” says Peter Komora.