Hundreds of Kenyans Protest Police Brutality in Nairobi (+Video)

The march was organized by three grassroots organizations from the area in response to a rise in the number of police killings since a dusk-till-dawn curfew was enforced in March to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. It was also organized to show solidarity with movements worldwide to protest against police brutality.

Rachel Wanjiku told the Guardian police often target young men after dark. “You can’t understand,” she said.

“We are here to protest against police killing us in the name of protecting us from corona. The police have killed us more than corona,” said another protester, Sobukwe Nonkwe, 30, a filmmaker, whose friend was shot and killed by the police.

At least 15 people have been killed by police, and 31 people injured since the curfew was imposed, the Independent Policing Oversight Authority (IPOA) said last week.

The police in Kenya have a historically antagonistic relationship with civilians. Before the coronavirus pandemic, Human Rights Watch (HRW) documented eight cases of police killings in less than two months. Last year, HRW reported that police killed “dozens” of men and boys in two poor areas of Nairobi, “apparently with no justification”.

Writer and commentator Patrick Gathara said policing in Kenya inherited its violence from British colonial forces, and has done nothing to change in the decades since independence. “It is the same colonial force. It never changed whether in attitude or mission,” he told the Guardian. “The brutality is just a function of how the state sees and deals with its subjects. It does not see us as citizens with rights but rather subjects with obligations.”

Monday’s marchers stopped at places where people had been killed. The demonstration ended near the apartment block of 13-year-old Yasin Moyo, who was shot and killed by police when he was playing on his balcony after curfew in March.

At the end of the march, police used teargas to disperse the crowd.