Police officers were the real threat on June 25

Gen Z members gathered at Uhuru Park Nairobi to honor comrades killed during anti-tax protests on July 7, 2024. [Samson Wire, Standard]

The violence that many feared would happen during the second commemoration of the June 25, 2024, protests last week did not materialise.

The protests did not take off as expected after police officers barricaded all routes to Nairobi's Central Business District and ensured protesters did not assemble or get to town. Many of those who attempted to were arrested and later arraigned.

The fact that the police effectively banned the protests without any court order is a matter that should concern every Kenyan who values constitutional freedoms. The right to picket, demonstrate, and present petitions to public authorities is not a privilege dispensed at the discretion of the Inspector General of Police. It is a fundamental right enshrined in Article 37 of the Constitution, and it comes with the force of the supreme law behind it.

What happened on Thursday was police suppression disguised as public order management. Interior Cabinet Secretary Kipchumba Murkomen had publicly assured Kenyans that Thursday would be a normal working day. Yet the public transport system in Nairobi's CBD ground to a halt, matatus were turned away from their routes, and the city centre was effectively placed under an undeclared lockdown enforced by heavily armed officers.

Businesses lost revenue. Commuters were stranded, and people were locked out of their workplaces. The contradiction between what the government said and what it did speaks to either spectacular incompetence or deliberate deception, neither of which reflects well on an administration that routinely invokes the rule of law when convenient.

More alarming was the brazen contempt of court that characterised Thursday's police deployment. Kenyan courts have issued clear directions that officers managing demonstrations must be in uniform and resort only to tear gas and rubber bullets where proportionate force is unavoidable.

Yet Nairobians watched in disbelief as plainclothes officers, some with faces covered, roamed the streets detaining unarmed citizens. To make matters worse, some human rights activists were abducted and tortured. There was also an attempt to abduct a Standard Media Group editor.

The concealing of identities was deliberate, as they knew they were operating outside the law. This open contempt of court orders demands a judicial response.

The police exist to serve the public. Their mandate on any protest day is to escort peaceful demonstrators, maintain order, and prevent criminal elements from hijacking a constitutional exercise. None of that happened. Instead, officers brutalised unarmed protesters and made a mockery of the very institutions they are sworn to uphold. The police became the threat they were deployed to guard against.

There is a need for independent investigations into Thursday's police conduct to identify and prosecute the officers who violated court orders. The government must issue an unequivocal public commitment to respect the Bill of Rights and stop trampling on democratic rights.