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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

An Outcry Over Photo Of Urchin’s Beating

Compiled From Wire Services

Legal experts deplored the public beating of a street child and called on authorities Thursday to arrest the men who were pictured standing with their feet on the boy’s back and head.

G.B.M. Kariuki, a member of the Law Society of Kenya, said the photograph of the badly beaten boy that was published Wednesday in the Daily Nation was a “grim painting of a sick society.”

Petty theft, often committed by street children, is fairly common in Kenya’s major cities.

If the thieves are caught, they are often beaten - and occasionally killed - by enraged bystanders. Police seldom intervene.