Outstanding Kenyan activist Boniface Mwangi is due in court docket on accusations of “facilitation of terrorist acts” all through ultimate month’s fatal anti-government protests by which a minimum of 19 other people died.
On Sunday, investigators mentioned they’d seized telephones, a computer, and notebooks from Mr Mwangi’s Lukenya house at the outskirts of the capital, Nairobi, and tough drives, computer systems, tear fuel canisters and a clean firearm spherical from his workplace within the town.
His arrest has sparked a wave of condemnation, with human rights teams denouncing it used to be aimed toward suppressing opposition voices.
The activist has denied the accusations, pronouncing in a publish on X: “It’s not that i am a terrorist.”
In keeping with the Kenya’s Directorate of Felony Investigations, Mr Mwangi stands accused of “offences associated with facilitation of terrorist acts and illegal ownership of ammunition”.
The alleged offences are connected to the 25 June protests when, consistent with the state-funded Kenya Nationwide Fee on Human Rights (KNCHR), 19 other people died as demonstrators clashed with police. Loads had been additionally injured and belongings and companies had been broken.
Within the aftermath, Internal Minister Kipchumba Murkomen described the demonstrations as “terrorism disguised as dissent” and an “unconstitutional try” to modify the federal government.
No less than 38 extra other people had been killed in next protests previous this month, the KNHCR has mentioned.
Since June ultimate yr, greater than 100 other people had been killed in successive waves of anti-government protests, with police accused of the use of over the top pressure to quell unrest.
On Sunday, a coalition of 37 rights organisations condemned Mr Mwangi’s arrest on “unjustified terrorism allegations”, describing it because the “newest escalation in a scientific crackdown that has observed loads of younger Kenyans detained on fabricated terrorism fees”.
“What started as focused persecution of younger protesters difficult responsibility has metastasized right into a full-scale attack on Kenya’s democracy,” they mentioned in a joint remark.
James Orengo, a veteran baby-kisser and governor of Siaya county, mentioned it used to be “ridiculous to rate Boniface Mwangi and our kids who’ve demonstrated a top degree of political awareness with terrorism”.
Mr Mwangi has been detained a couple of occasions prior to now, and has been on the centre of many protests.
In Would possibly, he and a Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire had been detained in Tanzania, the place they’d travelled to wait the trial of Tanzanian opposition chief Tundu Lissu, who’s accused of treason.
Following their unlock a number of days later, each mentioned they’d been kidnapped, tortured and sexually assaulted. They’ve since filed a case on the regional East African Courtroom of Justice over the topic.
