Dozens of Kenyans have been kidnapped in recent months, according to rights groups, who blame the police and intelligence services.
Police in the Kenyan capital Nairobi have fired tear gas to disperse protesters demonstrating against what they say is a wave of unexplained kidnappings of government critics.
Dozens of Kenyans have been abducted in recent months, according to human rights groups, who blame Kenya’s police and intelligence services for the extrajudicial arrests.
Kenyan authorities have said the government does not condone or engage in extrajudicial killings or abductions.
Several groups of young protesters marched through downtown Nairobi on Monday, while small groups of others staged protests as clouds of tear gas hung in the air. They chanted anti-government slogans, with some holding placards denouncing illegal detentions as police on horseback patrolled nearby.
Among the protesters was opposition lawmaker Okiya Omtatah, who was taking part in a protest, with demonstrators using thick chains to hold them together as riot police tried to separate them.
Kenya’s Daily Nation newspaper reported that Omtatah and 10 other protesters had been arrested during the protests.
Kenya’s National Human Rights Commission last week raised concern about a growing number of suspected abductions of government critics, saying the total number of such cases has reached 82 since anti-government protests began in June.
Initially aimed at overturning proposed tax increases, the demonstrations eventually evolved into a movement that cut across Kenya’s traditional ethnic divisions, becoming the biggest threat to President William Ruto’s government.
Ruto on Saturday said the government will stop the kidnappings so that the youths can live in peace.
‘Living in fear’
On Monday, Omtatah filed a case in the High Court in Nairobi seeking to compel the government to release seven youths, accusing the police of abducting them.
“If they have committed a crime, let them be prosecuted and appear in court to defend themselves,” he said.
The young protesters said they stood in solidarity with the abductees as they went about their daily lives. “We are existing in a time where we have to live in fear,” said one protester, Orpah Thabiti.
Four social media users disappeared after sharing AI-generated images of Ruto, which were deemed offensive by government supporters.
The rights commission had warned that Kenya was returning to the “dark days” of the disappearance of government critics. Abduction and torture of the opposition were common under the administration of the late President Daniel Moi.
Wanjiru Gikonyo, a researcher on good governance and accountability, said the protests in Kenya have been “organic, grassroots, leaderless and digitally organized”.
“What we are seeing in the wider context is actually a political transition,” Gikonyo told Al Jazeera.
“These youths, as much as they do not have an identified leader, actually have the heart and mind of Kenyans. This is showing that Kenyans are done with a paper constitution that does not translate into reality,” she added.
The current political leadership led by Ruto, she said, “has failed to deliver on the promise of democratic transition”, something that is unlikely to change.
