Kenya protests updates: Police use tear gas as crowds call for Ruto to quit

Thank you for joining our live coverage of the anti-government protests in Kenya.

You can read our up-to-date news story here.

We will be closing this live page soon, so it’s time for a quick recap:

• Police in Kenya fired tear gas and water cannon to break up anti-government protests in Nairobi, with demonstrators accusing officers of provoking the violence.
• Protests took place in many other towns and cities, with local media reporting gatherings in at least 23 counties.
• There were reports of several people being injured, including a journalist who suffered a gunshot wound after a police officer opened fire.
• In Kitengela, a Reuters reporter saw the body of one protester lying on the ground with blood oozing from a head wound. The police have not commented.
• The youth-led demonstrations that erupted a month ago against planned tax hikes have continued even after President William Ruto withdrew the legislation and fired almost all of his cabinet.
• Activists want the president to step down and are demanding systemic changes to fight corruption and address poor governance.

Activist Njeri Wa Migwi took part in today’s protest in central Nairobi.

She said the gathering in the capital was entirely peaceful until police started firing tear gas at the demonstrators.

“Today feels very insidious,” she told Reuters.

“It was like the police were out to get us.”

The Kenya Union of Journalists has issued a statement saying it strongly condemned the shooting of Catherine Kariuki, a Mediamax journalist, during antigovernment protests in Nakuru.

The statement said Kariuki is recovering from a gunshot injury at a hospital in Nakuru “after she was shot by a rogue police officer, in what her colleagues said was a targeted attack”.

Television footage showed the journalist bleeding from her thigh.

The union demanded “a swift investigation” by the Independent Policing Oversight Authority and action against the officer and the commander of the Nakuru operation.

“Such barbaric acts have no place in a democratic society like Kenya, where journalists are required to play the role of watchdog and source of credible information to citizens,” it added.

Demonstrators in different parts of Kenya have called for the president’s resignation, accusing him of poor governance.

Ruto last week dismissed all but one cabinet minister and promised to form a broad-based, lean and efficient government in response to the protesters’ demands.

But one demonstrator, Daniel Wambua, said the president has not adequately addressed governance issues raised by those demonstrating.

“We are asking genuine questions,” he told AP.

“Where is accountability? Where is governance?”

We previously reported about the Interior Ministry’s recommendation about the launch of an investigation into “deaths”, including those resulting from police action.

In its statement, the ministry also said police will use “reasonable force” when “protests escalate to criminalities”.

“While the police are guided by the National Police Service Act which prohibits the use of excessive force in the execution of their duties, Section 49 of the Police Service Act allows the security officers to use force only when it is necessary and to the extent required in the execution of their duties,” it added.

It was very intense here just an hour ago but it is a bit calmer now.

Tear gas was fired all day long – the streets are littered with the empty canisters that have been exploding here for hours.

Riot police with pickaxe handles have been telling people to hurry up and go home, threatening them as they walk past.

They’ve also used water cannon here today.

Some of the demonstrators are calling for Ruto to go, many are saying they need sweeping reforms.

They’re really challenging the governance model that we’ve seen in Kenya for decades – a politics in which corruption is endemic and people feel that this became acute under President William Ruto’s government or certainly more visible that it has been before.

Kenya’s Ministry of Interior says it has recommended to Ruto to initiate the official process of launching an investigation into the deaths reported during the protests, including those resulting from police action.

“The Coroner General’s Office will also ensure accountability and transparency in cases of suspicious deaths,” the ministry said in a statement.

It added that authorities remain on “high alert concerning the insecurity posed by protests infiltrators,” adding that a National Multi Agency Command has been established to coordinate security operations.

THE SANCTITY OF HUMAN LIFE MUST BE RESPECTED. pic.twitter.com/FygJCKtJfT

— Ministry of Interior | Kenya (@InteriorKE) July 16, 2024

Ruto last week hit the reset button on his government, dismissing almost his entire cabinet in a surprise shake-up after the nationwide protests against the finance bill.

While announcing the mass dismissal, the president pledged to build a broad-based government and engage directly with his critics.

But will it be enough to quell the anger of protesters?

Watch the Inside Story episode featuring guests Silvanus Osoro, ruling party MP; Wanjiru Gikonyo, researcher on good governance and accountability; and Kiritu Chege, activist and member of the Communist Party of Kenya:

Police in Nairobi are still firing tear gas several hours since protesters started gathering in the city centre.

As the sound of tear gas canisters being fired echoed around, some wore masks to protect themselves.

Al Jazeera reporters saw police officers use water cannon, as well.

“It seems the police don’t want anyone to protest at all,” Al Jazeera’s Malcolm Webb reported from the scene. “Most of the demonstrators we’ve seen in Nairobi today have been peaceful.”

• Protesters in Kenya renew antigovernment demonstrations that were initially sparked last month by proposed tax hikes.
• Local media reports say protests have taken place in at least 23 out of the country’s 47 counties.
• In the capital, Nairobi, largely peaceful protesters have been confronted with tear gas and water cannon. Several injuries are reported.
• In Kitengela, one person was reported dead.

Law student and protester Joshua Okwayo says he is among the people who were detained after the protests erupted last month.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Okwayo said he had just left his home when men bundled him into a car, handcuffed him and put a bag over his head the day after protesters in Nairobi entered parliament.

A visibly emotional Okwayo said he was beaten during an interrogation that included questions about who was organising and funding the leaderless protests.

“They were asking me questions I didn’t have answers to,” the student leader at Kenya’s Law School said, struggling to hold back tears.

“It’s an experience I don’t like to remember because every time I remember, I get disoriented.”

For hours now here in Nairobi’s city centre police have been using tear gas and water cannon to disperse protesters who keep coming back.

Some of the protesters’ hand-painted placards were scattered on the ground. Here is what some of them say:

• “Ruto is going home” – a slogan echoing the calls for the president to resign.
• “Draining the swamp” – a reference to the endemic corruption that has plagued Kenya’s politics for generations. Many protesters feel they have reached the tipping point as the government was trying to raise taxes at the time when critics felt the excesses of the government became more visible than ever.
• “Justice be our shield and defend our people’”- a call for justice for the dozens of protesters who were killed and abducted since the start of the anti-government demonstrations.
  

  

During Kenya’s weeks-long protests, protesters have not only directed their ire against the government but also against institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

For years, multilateral lenders, especially the IMF, have had bad reputations in African countries for providing loans to vulnerable countries based on stringent conditions that critics said have always disproportionately affected the poor.

African leaders, including Ruto, have also criticised international lenders for what they said are unusually high interest rates compared with other developing countries.

In Kenya, that anger is fresh because Ruto’s now-withdrawn tax hikes as well as similar legislation passed in 2023 are both linked to IMF loans as Kenya staggers under the weight of a heavy debt crisis.

While some of the complaints against the IMF are true, African leaders are often to blame, Dumebi Oluwole, an economist with the data intelligence start-up Stears, told Al Jazeera.

The higher interest rates, she said, are often because of records of default. The stringent conditions from lenders like the IMF have also been applied to distressed countries elsewhere, like Greece, which went through an economic crisis in 2009 and was partly bailed out by the lender, but African leaders often rely on options that hurt the majority, she said,

“African leaders are the sellouts,” she said. “We all know that IMF loans come with conditions, but some leaders, when asked to raise revenue, will choose taxation rather than cut costs. Then they’ll blame the IMF. Someone can only dangle crumbs in your face when you don’t know how to cook.”

Read more here.

As we previously reported, there is a heavy security presence in Nairobi’s city centre where protesters have been confronted with an abundance of tear gas.

Footage posted online by an ambulance service in the capital shows its personnel carrying an injured person away on a stretcher.

Our ambulance teams are on the ground, providing critical emergency medical services to injured persons in the ongoing demonstrations in the Nairobi CBD and other parts of the country. pic.twitter.com/hUePV6ELVM

— E-PLUS AMBULANCES KENYA (@EMS_Kenya) July 16, 2024

The protests appeared to be some of the biggest since the withdrawal last month of the controversial tax hikes. According to Kenya’s Nation newspaper, demonstrations have taken place in at least 23 of the country’s 47 counties.

Meanwhile in Kitengela, Reuters TV footage shows police firing repeatedly in the direction of hundreds of protesters, some of whom were throwing rocks.

The protesters also burned tyres, waved Kenyan flags and chanted “Ruto must go!”

Find out in the episode of our podcast series The Take below:

• On June 26, President William Ruto said he would not sign the deeply unpopular tax legislation following the protests. “I concede and therefore I will not sign the 2024 finance bill and it shall subsequently be withdrawn,” he told the nation in a televised address.
• Ruto also said he would start a dialogue with young Kenyan people and work on measures – starting with cuts to the budget of the presidency – to make up the difference in the country’s finances.
• He went on to host a live event on X meant to engage with young people but failed to appease some demonstrators who have continued to call for him to step down, using the hashtag #RutoMustGo and staging smaller rallies across towns and cities.
• On July 11, the president announced the dismissal of the attorney general and nearly all cabinet ministers.
• The following day, Kenya’s police chief resigned after criticism of officers’ conduct, including the use of excessive force, during the antigovernment demonstrations in which dozens of protesters were killed.