Kenyans started walking out from Monday, in cities like Nairobi, Nakuru, Mombasa and beyond.
In June 2024, the protests erupted across Kenya against a new bill that would mean a sharp rise in taxes, which culminated on 25 June. They were met with a high level of violence in the police response.
This year, the country's youth are protesting directly against the latter.
If the government had called for calm since last summer, the death of Albert Ojwang in police custody, arrested for posting on his blog a text criticising a police officer, sparked a new wave of protests, early June this year.
"I was not surprised because that is how our police officers operate in this country," Douglas Kivoi, a policy analyst at the Kenya Institute of Public Policy Research and Analysis (KIPPRA), told me.
The analyst has been studying the role and behaviour of the police in Kenya for years.
"They are used to settling political scores and silencing any dissent that the powers are not comfortable with. So that is just one of the few that made it to the public domain. Many of those cases hardly make it to the media. If the family keeps quiet or is threatened with dire consequences."
"We have a progressive constitution but our police officers have refused to change and transform themselves and align themselves with the best international practices," Kivoi continued.
Counter-protesters are also marching and supporting the police, raising fears of new violence, especially in Nairobi.
"How on earth do you shoot someone at point blank range like the one we witnessed recently?" Kivoi asked. "Someone who is just selling masks in the streets and then is shot at point blank range? I mean, how on earth would anybody do that knowing that the institution that they work for is under scrutiny for another murder of an individual who was arrested for a misdemeanour offense and then tortured to death in the police detention facilities? So this tells you that the impunity in our police service and policing agencies runs deeper than the public eye can see."
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Colonial roots of violence
Kivoi reckons that the violence in Kenya's police has been a foundation issue from the very beginning, and actually stems from colonial times.
"Kenya’s police institution was established as a colonial instrument of oppression," he penned. "Police reforms since independence in 1963 have had little impact in changing this. Instead, successive governments have used the police to suppress dissent. This has cemented a culture of violence and police impunity."
Even the best recommendations raised in police reflections and his own studies have not been applied yet.
"We take one step forward and then we take five steps backwards," Kivoi added. "Since independence in 1963, the first president, Jomo Kenyatta, used police to silence any dissent. And when the second president (Daniel arap Moi) took over, it was the same story. Assassinations, torture, detention. Later, when Mwai Kibaki took over the presidency (in 2002), he tried to reform the police. But then the 2007-2008 post-election violence was a tipping point where many accusations were made against the police officers' actions and most of the victims died because of police bullets or police inaction."
In 2010, Kenya implemented a new constitution, which is progressive according to many including Kivoi, "if well implemented and adhered to".
The country also put in place institutions like the Independent Policing Oversight Authority, and an attempt to delink police from the office of the president.
But Kivoi thinks "it never bore much fruit".
"I believe the problem lies in our policing agencies. It's not the resources. So, if you carry out reforms in the name of changing institutions' names and changing uniforms from the Kenya Police Force to National Police Service, that doesn't change the attitude of these officers as they approach their work and in the way they interact with communities.
He thinks the training of police officer must change.
"We need to change the way our officers are trained, because I believe that is where the problem is, the training of these officers, after they are recruited, and then the management of personnel, because promotions are done through tokenism, through who you know. And I hear they must give a bribe to get promoted. And then we need to depoliticise the policing, because police officers, since independence, have been used by the government of the day to settle political scores, arrest people without any justifiable reason, like Ojwang, who was tortured and killed in a police facility."
System change
Kenya's Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions said on Monday they approved murder charges against six people, including three police officers, for their role in killing Ojwang. The six suspects were arraigned on Tuesday.
So, can we hope for an end to impunity?
Kivoi thinks that it is still difficult to flag out the issues of police excesses and punitive actions because the media in Kenya "sometimes goes to bed with the government", and don't denounce police brutality.
"But the fact that we have got social media, and then we have got a young population that has embraced technology, makes it more difficult for police to think that they will behave the way they have been behaving and get away with it."
The protests, and the technology helping reporting them, are playing a critical role in trying to bring down cases of police excesses when they are interacting with the civilians.
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