State clamping down on basic civic rights, new report reveals

A majority of Kenyans believe civic space has worsened in the past two years, with declining confidence in constitutional rights, a new survey shows.

The report indicates that more than 55 per cent of respondents believe the state of civic space was “bad” or “very bad”.

The assessment carried out early this year in 10 counties showed that across all the parameters including freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, public participation, freedom of association rated more than 55 per cent across the regions with the exception of freedom of association which had 49 per cent.

“A lot of people are claiming that they are being punished instead of being enabled to express themselves. The government is basically now becoming much more punitive, fighting people who are expressing themselves either online or offline,” said Kamau Ngugi, executive director of Defenders Coalition.

The survey titled "Trends in Civic Space in Kenya: An Assessment conducted by Defenders Coalition" was done in Nairobi, Mombasa, Machakos, Nakuru, Kericho, Kisumu, Busia, Kakamega, Meru and Nyeri. 

The survey sought to establish how Kenyans rate civic space today, how they viewed it after the 2010 Constitution, and whether it has changed over the past two years, a period that mirrors the Kenya Kwanza administration.

“It is important we conduct these surveys because we have a constitution that mandates that every citizen have rights and freedoms that they need to enjoy and we are deeply concerned that increasingly the state has been taking away from the promises that are already in the constitution,” said Kamau Ngugi, Executive Director Defenders Coalition.

“This report is a confirmation that the government has been on one hand claiming that they are allowing their citizens to enjoy their rights, but the reality on the ground is that people's rights are being violated.”

The report was unveiled in Nairobi during the 10th Annual Human Rights Defenders Academy convened by the National Coalition of Human Rights Defenders, bringing together HRDs from across all the 47 counties.

While the national findings point to growing concern, the findings also revealed key regional variations. For example, Kisumu, often seen as politically outspoken, registered milder criticism of government role in the shrinking space. 

“In Kisumu, we saw a mellowing of the views of the public, which could be attributed mainly to the timing of the survey, because Kisumu is now in the broad-based government setup, where people are feeling like now the government is friendly to them, so that likely affects their perceptions,” said lead researcher, Prof Ferdinand Okwaro.

Meru, Mombasa and Nakuru counties had more than 50 per cent of the populations reporting restrictions on their freedoms of peaceful assembly from both county and national government agents.

On freedom of association Mombasa, Nakuru and Meru also led with highest trend of 71, 71 and 70 per cent respectively.

Kericho County recorded the most positive ratings, with respondents describing the government as supportive and expressing reluctance to issue negative assessments. 

Nyeri showed increased dissatisfaction, suggesting shifting political attitudes.

According to Prof Okwaro, younger Kenyans below 35 and with higher education levels rated civic space as bad.

Notably, the report also highlights how county-level leadership affects public experiences of rights warning that nuances indicated that access to constitutional freedoms may depend too heavily on individual officeholders rather than institutional safeguards.

“An aspect like public participation is controlled at the local, constituency or county level and these are very much affected by the governor or the MP there,” Okwaro stated.

“So there is need to develop a situation where the enjoyment of civic space does not depend on the MP and does not depend on the governor,” he added.

He cited findings from Meru noting that respondents had a very poor rating on the civic space parameters citing past conflicts involving senior political personalities in attempts to clamp on freedom of expression especially with the case of the death of sniper, a blogger who was killed.

“A large majority of the respondents (78.34 per cent) agreed that there had been an increase in the crackdown on the right to peaceful assembly in Kenya in the last two years,” reads the report.

“This increase at citizen level was also accompanied by an increase at CSO levels where 73.21 per cent agreed that there had been an increase in the in the crackdown on CSOs that support the right to peaceful assembly in Kenya,” the report reads further.

Police officers and intelligence agents were identified as the most prominent source of the threats to citizens exercising civil rights such as the right to assemble. Political leaders and sponsored militia groups were also identified as sources of threats.

The major forms of threats identified by the respondents were intimidation by state agents or hired assailants, death threats, tracking, criminalization, internet tracking, wiretapping or trolling. Kenyans also feared that by expressing their rights, they would be denied services, sacked or demoted at the or being banned in particular forums.

Rose Njeri, a participant at the academy and the Software Engineer and a coder who was arrested for developing a tool that Kenyans could use to express their opinions on the Finance Bill stated that the report illustrates the lived experience of human rights defenders.

“We have a very solid constitution and at the very basic, the government should follow the law because we have people who are knowledgeable and cannot be pushed,” she exclaimed.

Njeri emphasized on the need for civil societies to fight against the government 's continued criminalisation of the justice system to frustrate activists.

“That incident affected my life, being criminalized when I was literally just living my life, building a tool that was supposed to be helpful to the government as well, not just to Kenyans in general. I am a victim and the government needs to stop cherry-picking laws to gag us and do what is right,” Njeri added.

Despite the injuries and deaths that occurred in previous protests, the majority of the respondents indicated that they would still go to the streets to protest.

To reduce the cases of rights violations to to ensure adherenace to the constitution, the report recommends adequate financial allocation to independent and constitutional commissions such as Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR) and the National Gender and Equality Commission (NGEC), Independent Policy Oversight Authority (IPOA).

“The CSOs should proactively counter negative narratives perpetuated by the state and other interested parties to remain steadfast, objective and credible defenders of the civic space,” reads the report.