Ongoing opposition demos are fuelled by half-truths

Protestors barricade a section of the road during Anti-Government protests in Nakuru city on July 12, 2023. [Kipsang Joseph, Standard]

Article 37 of the Constitution says, "Every person has the right, peaceably and unarmed, to assemble, to demonstrate, to picket and to present petitions to public authorities." Yet the phrase "peaceably and unarmed" is frequently glossed over by "demonstrators" engaged in acts of wanton vandalism, theft and murder. No stretch of imagination can call the impediment of traffic by bonfires lit in the middle of the road peaceable. Nor can the pelting with stones of motorists and innocent bystanders caught in the dogfights between demonstrators and the police be described as unarmed.

Yet it is becoming increasingly clear that those who have mooted current demonstrations that are rocking the country intend a regime change. It is also apparent that peaceful and unarmed protests, as envisaged by the Constitution, denudes this attempted power grab of the agency that it needs to sustain its cause.