Kenyans Return to the Streets a Year After Deadly Tax Protests

Africa|Kenyans Return to the Streets a Year After Deadly Tax Protests

Thousands of protesters marched across Kenya on Wednesday to mark a year since huge demonstrations against a contentious tax plan turned deadly and laid bare the growing anger at President William Ruto’s government.

The police fired tear gas at protesters who were waving Kenyan flags and blowing whistles in central Nairobi, where banks and businesses were shuttered amid a heavy security presence. Officers also closed some major roads leading to the city center and blocked routes leading to Parliament with barbed wire. In the coastal city of Mombasa, demonstrators carrying antigovernment placards gathered in the city center, according to witnesses and footage aired on local television.

“Many of us are being killed with no reason,” said Don Cliff Ochieng, a 24-year-old security guard in Nairobi who said that he was protesting because of the lack of economic opportunities and police brutality. “It is our right to demonstrate,” he added.

On Tuesday, Kenya’s top police official, Douglas Kanja Kirocho, urged the public in a statement to “refrain from provocative acts directed at police officers in the execution of their duties.”

The protests come a year after tens of thousands of Kenyans took to the streets to challenge a proposed finance bill that many feared would increase the cost of living by raising taxes on everyday goods and services. Those demonstrations were largely mobilized by younger Kenyans who used social media platforms to rally against the plans.

When members of Parliament approved the bill on June 25 last year, protesters clashed with the police in Nairobi, and some stormed the legislature, briefly setting its entrance on fire and forcing lawmakers to flee.