MSJC Statement on the Illegal Arrest & Detention of #OccupyParliament Protestors

Today, June 18, many Kenyans came out to protest against the punitive Finance Bill of 2024.

While the right to assembly is guaranteed by the Constitution, the police, under the orders of the state, responded to us as though we are in war.

On the streets were grandmothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, siblings who were there to peacefully demand their right to dignity; their right to not have 16% tax on bread, diapers, sanitary towels and even cancer treatment.

Currently, we estimate that over 200 people are being held in Central Police Station, Kasarani Police Station, Muthaiga Police Station and other unknown locations. At Central Police Station, none of the protestors have been booked for any offence, although the police are still detaining them and preventing lawyers from seeing them. Those detained include Njeri Mwangi, a key member of the MSJC Secretariat.

We demand that the Ruto administration immediately release the illegally detained Kenyans who were exercising their sovereignty fully within Article 37 of the constitution. This is the article that states: “every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket, and to present petitions to public authorities.”

The grandmothers who left Mathare in the morning to join the protest were coming to let the government know that they are tired of sleeping in the ruins of their houses by the polluted Mathare river; they have been there ever since their homes were violently destroyed by the government to “save” them from future floods.

Collectively, we were all coming to say we are tired of being demumanized every day because Ruto wants to be at the service of IMF and World Bank masters.

The people have come out to exercise their sovereign power directly and have demanded that the Finance Bill 2024 be rejected in its entirety. Though we have been met with the state violence of this criminal government, we will not relent in our fight to defend the dignity and rights of our people.

Mathare Social Justice Centre (MSJC)