The lobby group Operation Linda Jamii has submitted a petition to the court requesting police assistance for protesters during their anticipated peaceful procession to State House in Nairobi and various State Lodges.
According to court documents, the petitioner has informed the Inspector General of Police (the second respondent) about the planned nationwide march set for Tuesday, July 30, during which protesters intend to present their petitions at these locations.
Linda Jamii stated that the processions will include their members as well as Kenyans of goodwill, aiming to deliver petitions to State House in Nairobi and to State Lodges in Mombasa, Kisumu, Sagana, Nyeri, Eldoret, Nakuru, Kakamega, and Kitale.
They emphasized the importance of police restraint, given recent trends where the police force has been used against peaceful protesters, and called on the Inspector General to ensure that officers exercise caution during the nationwide march.
“In all these protests, despite the fact that Kenyans have consistently communicated their intention to, peaceably and unarmed, express their disaffection with the regime on the streets, they have been met with untold violence, intimidation, torture, detention without trial, murder and enforced disappearances at the hands of the State,” reads the document in part.
The petitioner further faulted the Kenya Kwanza regime for deploying officers to intimidate Kenyans, breaching the provisions of the 2010 Constitution.
“The nation is quickly degenerating into a police state. Voices of dissent are being criminalized on a mass scale, due process is being denied those deemed to be against the regime, the horror of enforced disappearances and extra-judicial killings is back in full force,” they told the court.
“The preamble to the Constitution of Kenya, 2010, recognises the aspirations of all Kenyans for a government based on the essential values of human rights, equality, freedom, democracy, social justice and the rule of law.”
The march to State House was initially organized on June 27 during the peak of nationwide protests, leading to the strategic placement of heavily armed officers around the premises, preventing anyone from approaching the entrances.
Military security was also deployed to barricade all connecting roads leading to State House. According to the First Schedule of the Protected Areas Act, State House and State Lodges are classified as protected areas. Anyone found within these premises without authorization “shall be guilty of an offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years, a fine not exceeding five thousand shillings, or both such imprisonment and fine.”
