The distinguished activist and former photojournalist is charged over alleged function in lethal antigovernment protests in June.
A distinguished Kenyan human rights activist has been charged with illegal possession of ammunition over his alleged function in lethal antigovernment protests in June.
Boniface Mwangi was charged by the police on Monday, two days after he was arrested and accused of possessing unused tear fuel canisters, a “7.62mm clean spherical”, two cell phones, a laptop computer and notebooks.
Kenya has been going through mass antigovernment protests throughout the nation since final 12 months – first towards tax will increase in a finance invoice and later to demand the resignation of President William Ruto.
Because the protests broke out, police have been accused of human rights abuses, together with allegations of presidency critics and activists being kidnapped and tortured.
Rights teams stated greater than 100 folks have been killed within the protests, which have been harshly suppressed.
This month, a minimum of 31 folks have been killed and greater than 100 injured in a authorities crackdown on a protest. In June, a minimum of 19 folks have been killed in an identical demonstration towards Ruto.
Police accused Mwangi, a former photojournalist, of “facilitating terrorist acts” through the June protests and arrested him on Saturday. The activist denied the costs, saying in a social media put up shared by his supporters: “I’m not a terrorist.”
His arrest triggered a wave of condemnation on-line with the hashtag #FreeBonifaceMwangi going viral and rights teams condemning it.
The search warrant police used to raid Mwangi’s residence, which an ally shared with journalists, accused the campaigner of getting paid “goons” to stoke unrest eventually month’s protests.
Nonetheless, 37 rights organisations and dozens of activists stated they haven’t but managed to show {that a} choose had issued that warrant.
Mwangi’s arrest on “unjustified terrorism allegations” represents an abuse of the justice system to crush the opposition, the organisations stated in a joint assertion.
“What started as focused persecution of younger protesters demanding accountability has metastasized right into a full-scale assault on Kenya’s democracy,” the teams stated.
In June final 12 months, Al Jazeera’s digital documentary strand Shut Up profiled Mwangi throughout a ferocious police crackdown. He then stated his nickname on-line was the “Folks’s Watchman” as a result of he was striving to get justice for the households of protesters killed by police.
Mwangi has been arrested a number of occasions in Kenya.
He was arrested on Might 19 this 12 months in Dar-es-Salaam, neighbouring Tanzania’s largest metropolis, the place he had travelled to help treason-accused Tanzanian opposition chief Tundu Lissu.
Each Mwangi and a fellow detainee, award-winning Ugandan activist Agather Atuhaire, accused the Tanzanian police of torturing and sexually abusing them whereas they have been in custody.
The pair have introduced a case earlier than the East African Court docket of Justice.
